WCAC: Agony Ankle

I’d like to share two thoughts that I had at midnight, on top of a mountain, a few weeks ago with you all:

Fuck, I came all the way from SF for this? Thanks for ruining it, Alex.

Instantly followed by...

Shit, poor Alex, this looks bad; how will we get him off this mountain...

“Are you okay? Can you put any weight on it?”

“I’ll be fine, I think I can go on...*insert blood curdling scream*”

Not my own work, obvs

Somewhere along this ridge between Hollins Cross and Lose Hill (in the Peak District National Park, in the middle of England), in the middle of a winter night, my friend Alex hurt his ankle real bad. It made weird noises.

Rewind.

Less than an hour earlier, we were posing for photos.

Me, Jasmin, Konrad, Alex

Defending co-ed champions, Team Haggis On Tour, about to start a 42 mile, overnight, navigation-very-much-required-to-finish fell race, ran in teams of four. Our good friend and long-time rival, Jim, had a crack team and we had the prospect of an epic 8-9 hour battle, punctuated with some riddles I had prepared:

Well, what is the name of the stepson of Simkins?

Everything had been going well: Hollins Cross, the first checkpoint, arrived before I could even bring Mrs Watkins into the equation, and we were setting a blistering pace along the ridge to the second hill. One of my favourite features of the race was Alex’s undoing: teams start at one-minute intervals: fastest teams starting last. As a result, while running along this narrow, muddy ridge, we were having to dive off the track to overtake other teams, chasing Jim who had started a few minutes before us.

I watched Alex try to convince us (himself?) he was fine. After the second scream, the crushing realisation on his face that this was the end of our race -- the thought that he was letting us down -- was worse than the cries of agony it temporarily put aside.

Despite my first emotional reaction (human nature or I’m an asshole), the only person aware that there was a race happening around us was Alex. We'd quickly moved well beyond caring about anything other than Alex: we were on top of a mountain in the winter wearing nothing but lycra. Additional layers on immediately; Jasmin was going to run back to the start, get our car and meet us at the nearest road; Konrad and I would provide shoulders for Alex, and point the compass straight down the hill.

It was slow going, punctuated by yelps from Alex, but I provided an easy subject for mockery (“look how american Iain sounds”, Trump, “When will you get deported”,...) and the prospect of being first team back for the legendary post-race stew kept his mind off the pain.

We got Alex off the hill in around two hours. It had taken 20 minutes to get up. We were sadly disappointed on the stew front:

Six hours too early for anyone except Katie Williams

But we did get to spend the next four hours in the ER:

You might notice that we replaced Konrad with an alcoholic called Paul in the post-race photo. That’s another story.

The NHS finally determined that it was not broken, and sent us on our merry way. At 6am we toasted ourselves for surviving our ordeal, and then headed to bed.

I'd like to propose a toast...

Jim’s team? Well, they won. But there was none of the usual mockery and jocularity: they were gutted for us, and for Alex: the prospect of 6 months off running sends a chill down any runner’s spine.

Why am I sharing this? It’s not a terribly exciting story. Not really as a reminder of the dangers of mountain travel, not as an insight into the drinking culture of middle england, and certainly not as a lesson on mountain rescue.

I think it’s mostly to point out the asymmetry(?) of human nature.

God, we are hard on ourselves.

Jasmin was kicking herself for being just in front and blocking Alex’s view.

Konrad was upset about being responsible for bringing Alex on the team at the last minute, and possibly ruining his season.

Alex blamed himself for ‘being clumsy’ and letting the team down.

I felt very guilty for making Alex feel worse because I’d travelled so far.

Go figure.

Postscript. There are benefits to not running 42 miles. You are able to run the rest of the weekend.