(top pic, David Miller)
It has certainly been a busy month. I followed up completion of this dark and mesmerising 200 mile race in 54hours and 19 minutes (for context that Tunnel would join Bath to Lake Windermere if continuous) and recklessly followed it up 3 weeks later with 100KM in the bright and bounteous Tuscan Hills, the land of Chianti, combatting 4,200m of climb – (for context 4 x sea level to the summitt of Snowdon/ Yr Wyddfa.)
The films above tell the story of the Tunnel in detail, espcially Le Parisien, whose film delivers the unpalatable frozen end of the Tunnel in all of its glorious dread. The only bit missing from this film is the internal – what was going on in my head and inside the dizzy brains of the other participants.
Getting the Tunnel done took a bit of everything – physical fitness for sure, determination certainly, but luck too. I was talking myself out of the exit door based on tired maths after 140 miles. Thankfully, race director, Mark Cockbain (pictured above) popped up at just the right moment to tell me “its tight but doable” and so I recounted the hours remaining, stabilised, ate some fudge, and went again.
In so doing, I became the 22nd person in the history of the event to complete this challenge and also learnt all about how my brain works under extreme halluciantion. Mile after mile after mile my considerate brain fully reinvented the repetitious route, giving me hills, alpine vistas, skateboard parks and DIY stores. There is a branch of “Leroy Merlin” in that Tunnel somewhere. I expect fellow finisher Kevin Mayo would likley be able to find it, he was definitely clinging to reality each time we passed each other during the hours of shuttling and shuffling. Our conversation in there: Kevin remarking on his disappearance to another world, my bid to anchor us both: “Remember to turn after the mat.”
When the inestimable Dylan Gould came to say he was stopping at 100 miles, I was just waking up from walk-dream about an engineering contest I was hosting. So I congratulated Dylan for his efforts and sent him on his way, unsure which of the bridges or buildings he had constructed.
I was even able to step into other people’s accounts of their hallucinations. David Harvey’s 2023 vision of shopping for perfume in Debenhams came to me that Sunday afternoon at what I started to think of the Debenhams end of the Tunnel. I was able to confirm afterwards with David that I had placed it at the right end of the Tunnel, a wall sprayed with dazzling daylight that brought to mind the tiered exterior of Galleries Lafayette. Those wet spit drips of icy water exploded off the wall there like gaudy jewels of cut glass. It was easy to twist them into cabinets containing exotic bottles of Dior.
The odd bit – each time I saw the store, I knew it was a vision, but I didn’t stop to consider that the uphill bit just before it wasn’t in the least bit real.
For those last ‘few’ returns (about 10 hours of them) the moment I headed into the Tunnel I was in another place. Only the other runners, my watch, a bit of ceiling, my intentionally loud breathing, and the icy drips from above were real. Everything else was imagined. My watch told me the time of day (or night) and that was how I knew the end of the Tunnel was approaching. I had no other way of knowing how far the end was; everytime I looked for a distance marker on the wall it animated, it morphed, it formed words or faces. But my watch was real and it told the truth. If 15 mins was up then a hurry on and the end of a lap would come into view. It had to. Those 10 hours were riddled with anxiety as I absolutely didn’t have time to play with. At the turn point there would be my provisions box and Karen, the president of Tunnel operations, and the benevolent One Show crew. They were all real. I could ask after their well being in a general exchange of niceties. After all, this was a very British type of hardship.
After finishing the Tunnel there is still a mile left to drag everything back to the car. Agnes, Brendon and I stumbled to our car, guided by Vicki. Agnes seemed fine. I was sort of OK, but getting cold. Brendon was still seeing diversions in the one directional route, and fearing horrors pouncing from walls that wern’t there. At one point he refused to move and turning to coax him forwards I found myself stepping carefully over an illusionary woodpile before I could help him.
In the days following the Tunnel, fat feet aside, my physical well being returned with ridiculous rapidity. I ran a 20 miler the weekend following. At work though there were woolly periods, and I would find myself asleep at my desk.
So, strangely, the trip to Chianti was like the perfect medicine. Whilst a luke warm crunchy Pot Noodle and a flooded portaloo have their own unique charms, an aid station with charcuterie at the chateau (pictured below) just about edges it. Outdoors under the full moon and the purpling Italian sky, sharing bright conversations in broken languages, I found myself exultant. I despatched the fog of the Tunnel into those vineyards and celebrated its departure with pizza and wine.
