Winter Paddy Buckley FKT

I reach Rhosydd quarry, fifty miles and sixteen hours in, it is the dead of night. A scary enough place in daylight, where young men worked and died, deep in the hillside tunnels. Slate ruins loom silently around me. The moon shadows play tricks on my eyes, ghosts are closing in from all around.

I’ve reached a crossroads. If I turn right, down the hill, towards my home town of Blaenau Ffestiniog, I could get in my warm, safe bed, and make all this end.

Or, I could go straight on. Ten more miles, over the hardest terrain in the whole round. No paths, just fields of bogs, deep enough to drown in. It sounds crazy now, sat here writing this, in the safety of my own home, warm, dry, well fed, but I was very sorely tempted just to take that right hand turn, with a big;

Fuck you. Fuck them. Fuck this whole thing. See if I care.

Ten months earlier, February 2021, I’m standing on my treadmill. I have an eight mile run on the schedule. I’m about to press the big, green ‘start’ button. I can’t bring myself to do it. I’ve been running 100 mile weeks, week after week, alone, in lockdown. And suddenly, I’ve just had enough.

I am motionless, in the dark garage, contemplating my life choices. This is just one silly run, I could easily skip it. But it gives me an out. It makes it easier to skip the next one. I got fat and depressed during the first lockdown. Now, with the second wave, more homeschooling and Covid deaths wreaking havoc and uncertainty upon the world, this training schedule is the only thing that feels familiar. I’m clinging onto it for dear life.

I convince myself that the door to my house is locked shut, and it won’t open until the treadmill display reads; 8.00 miles. I might have to jog at a ridiculously slow pace to finish, or sleep out here on the treadmill, but the door stays closed.

Every tenth of a mile clicks by painfully. I’m saying to myself; “I can’t do this. I can’t do this.” All the way through the run. Until, finally, it’s over.

I go back inside the house and, when the kids are in bed, I sit on the sofa with a cold beer. I don’t tell my wife, or anyone, what hell I’ve just been through. Because what have I just been through? What is the point in any of it?

I’m training for a marathon in April, hoping every day it won’t get Covid cancelled. Three months of 100 mile weeks, I don’t miss a single run. I am fit. I throw my seven year old boy on the top bunk, get an unusual twinge in my back, but think nothing of it. The next morning I can hardly walk.

I have three weeks until race day, my back injury doesn’t improve at all. I miss the race.

I’m slightly, absolutely, devastated. As each week passes and I still can’t run, I feel all that fitness slowly, slide away. There is nothing I can do. I’ve just turned forty and, immediately, suffer my first ever back injury. So this is middle age.

When my back is healed enough to run again, I spurn the roads, blaming them for my injury, and turn my attention to the mountains. The big, wide vistas help me get a sense of perspective, I feel like I’m getting a handle on things. But I’m still kidding myself. I have an unshakable belief that the world still owes me a favour.

I attempt the Paddy Buckley round in early summer. I run half of it at record pace. Then I crash and burn. I have to quit. I realise, fully, that the fitness has gone.

I learn to completely let it go. I start again, from where I am, not where I want to be. Rebuilding slowly, over the next three or four months, things start to click. I run the fastest solo time for the Paddy in August, and two weeks later, I undertake the awesome Dragon’s Back Race, finishing 2nd in an incredible adventure.

It’s been a seminal year, but, as it draws to a close, I know I have unfinished business with the Winter Paddy. I completed it late in 2020, and now, twelve months on, I feel like I am fit and experienced enough to get the FKT. A failed attempt in the first week of December, and a subsequent pep talk from my mum, only strengthens my resolve. I really want this.

Sunday, December 19th, 2021, the weather is perfect. There is actually a temperature inversion, the higher you go, the warmer it gets. The crystal clear skies give excellent visibility. I am moving smoothly over the Carneddau first, then the Glyderau. The jutted out, kryptonite rocks are dry and gritty. I know I am going too fast. I don’t care. It feels so epic.

I summit Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) in the sunset, the patches of snow are an iridescent orange. Not a breath of wind in the sky. It’s all feeling too good to be true. I start to climb Yr Aran, my thighs cramp up, they are responding to the pounding from the long descent off Yr Wyddfa. I have to lie down and shake them out for about five minutes. It’s my first scare of the day. Things are going to get much worse.

Darkness closes in just before I reach Nantlle Ridge. I had really wanted to get here with some daylight left. In darkness it’s much slower. The big rocks hide the way, a massive black abyss yawns away to my right. I have to take my time.

I’m scared shitless of the dark. Always have been. An overactive imagination or something. I can’t accept the black canvas, so my mind paints all sorts of nasty characters to fill the void. They get very real in my head. Behind me, chasing me, always just out of sight.

Running down Aberglaslyn woods, there are reflectors stuck on random trees, for scouts to do night exercises. I hate those scouts. The reflectors terrify me every time. they turn into the shining eyes of the nine Ringwraiths. I know, Ringwraiths don’t have shining eyes, but this is my nightmare.

I narrowly avoid capture and burst out of the woods into the relative safety of the street lights in Nantmor. As I begin the final leg with the gentle climb up Cnicht, I am 2hrs 45 up on record pace, but I’m not feeling great. It feels distinctly like I am about to bonk. Fuzzy head and finger tips. I don’t understand, I have followed my nutrition plan, bang on, all day.

I have to slow down to a walk. A few summits later I try to eat another energy bar and it comes back up violently, and more bars come with it. Nothing has been absorbed for the past two hours. My stomach is in a terrible way. I heave so intensely and conclusively that, I know, I will not be able to eat anything again during this attempt. I have been pushing too hard and too fast during the day, force feeding myself, and now my belly has totally shut down.

So, I reach Rhosydd quarry, fifty miles and sixteen hours in, it is the dead of night. Hesitating, at that crossroads, tired, cold, hungry, wanting badly to turn right, towards home.

It’s like I’m standing in front of a neon cash machine. I know, it’s ridiculous to find a cash machine up here, but this is my nightmare. I put my card in. I am going to need everything.

Somewhere deep down, I remember those lost months of training for the marathon that never was. Every time I was out on that treadmill on my own, not wanting to press that big green button, and every single time, I found a way to do it. I tricked, cajoled, begged and bargained with myself. I thought I was training my body, but here I am now, it dawns on me, I was training my mind.

There is enough left. There is enough there to convince me that I can get to the next hill. And one more. And one more after that. All that training and effort that I thought I had lost to the ether, it all returned. When I least expected it. The energy you put out into the universe, is the energy that comes back.

I finished the round at 3.15am. In the stone cold, dead of night. With my family, the camera crew and a low mist enshrouding us. I had broken the record by 1hr 15min. I had wanted to do a little dance, like the American Footballers when they score a touchdown. But I had no energy to dance, or say something funny or memorable. It was just relief.

The satisfaction came slowly. A slow burn. It’s still burning now. Every Tuesday and Wednesday, when I drive over to Bangor to coach my squad, I like to take the high pass. I look into the mountains, and, sometimes, I see a lone headtorch, up in the black night. My stomach feels a sudden jolt of fear, then the warm pride sets in. I did that.

I know! Such a good story, but the great news is, the whole, magnificent adventure was captured by the excellent Film Company, Cwmni Da, and you can watch it here now, for only £2.99. Any profits I make will go to the Chris Smith Memorial Fund.

“This is the best film I’ve seen in a long time! A must watch, you won’t be disappointed”

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