Monday 26th August 2019:

Arrived this morning in Bozeman, Montana aka Big Sky country.

For people here a hunting rifle and fishing rod are an extension of their bodies. Ain’t not veggies knocking about, that’s for sure.

Got a lift from the airport to Big Sky (the town) and as we were driving along the fella points to the right and says, “Have you ever heard of Ted Turner?”, to which I replied, “Not the Ted of ‘Ted’s Montana Grill’ restaurants?” (nothing gets past me!), “Yeah”, he says, “Well, everything to the right of the highway, everything that you can see, all the land to the horizon…he owns it. All of it.”

Believe me, that’s a fuck ton of land.

Anyway, I arrive in Big Sky, which turns out to be one of THREE ‘Big Sky’s’; a ‘canyon’ Big Sky, a ‘meadows’ Big Sky’ and a ‘mountain’ Big Sky. That’s relatively confusing in itself. What’s more confusing is that no-one calls them that (despite what the map says…but then nation-states historically ignore maps anyway, right?!), instead there’s (and I hope I get this right…) Town Center (sic), Mountain Resort, Gallatin Canyon and Town Meadows Village. Town Center and Town Meadows Village are, as far as I can tell, one and the same place.

I’m booked in to stay somewhere between the Mountain Resort (‘mountain’ Big Sky) and Town Center/Town Meadows Village (‘meadows’ Big Sky). There are no buses. It’s hot. It’s around 3-miles uphill along the highway.

This is not Colorado.

That’s good, because I get picked up second car when I hitch.

The Air BnB is posh, but then it should be for how much it cost.

I run up the highway to ‘mountain’ Big Sky, around 4-miles away and get my first proper look at Lone Mountain. She’s a biggun’.

Met some locals in the Hungry Moose Deli who were keen to run with me early doors and show me the second half of the race route for The Rut 28k. Super friendly. We arranged to meet tomorrow at 0615 by the “fucking massive Fire Station man, you can’t miss it!”

Had a salad.

Went to bed.

Tuesday 27th August 2019:

0505 – Alarm goes off. Pills. Poop. Porridge.

0540 – Out the door for the trot up the highway to the fire station by ‘mountain’ Big Sky.

0612 – Arrive. He was right, you can’t miss it….

0635 – Apparently they can though.

0636 – Stood up. Officially.

0645 – After a short jog into the resort I’m sat having a coffee in a 5-star hotel. The manager refuses to let me pay, so I order another one. Make hay while the sun shines. Montanans (?) are really friendly by the way (except maybe for the two no-shows from earlier, though to be fair they WERE friendly).

0800 – Sun’s up, it’s finally warm, so I go to check out the main climb of the race, reversing some of the run-in to the finish before free-styling it up to, what will be, the Swiftcurrent Aid Station and onwards to the ‘Bone Crusher’ trail to the summit of Lone Mountain. It’s a brute of a climb. Loose, technical and steep. It takes a good 35′ to cover the 1.5 miles to the top. I’m trying to go ‘easy’ but even easy feels hard. With two hard races this closer together, I’m worried that I may have upset the really delicate balance.

0907 – There’s a familiar ‘Denver’ smell emanating from the high summit lift station on Lone Mountain. Two ‘dudes’ are manning the fort. We chat shit for a bit; his blank face means that he’s either really fucking stoned (as I suspect) or he doesn’t understand a word I’m saying. I head down the race descent, stopping to take pictures and recce the best lines. There are none. It’s classic fell-running terrain, brain out and hope for the best. Steep and techy.

An hour or so later I’m at a trailhead discovering that I’m about 8-miles away from where I thought I was/hoped to be. This is ‘Yellowstone Club’ territory. It’s a posh gated community with houses lived in for perhaps 2 months a year, exactly like the Lakes really. I ran past a house WITH A FLIPPIN’ DRAWBRIDGE. A drawbridge.

After hitching into one of the Big Sky places to buy some food and groceries, I’m back at the BnB rinsing the WiFi to watch some Match of the Day and Peaky Blinders.

Yup, I’m one of those people.

Wednesday 28th August 2019:

Dave Gill‘s here! He drove across from Seattle to keep me company. Lad!

Straight out for a coffee followed, not too swiftly, by a run to check out the first part of this Rut 28k course. Not mega inspiring to be honest, follows some nice singletrack for a bit then switches to jeep tracks then…..oh, a wriggly descent on rough ground and a monster of a climb up what looks like a giant sandpit made of loose rubble.

Treat.

I sack it off before the climb, no need to ruin the surprise already.

Not much to do in Big Sky so we go back and watch some telly.

Fun, huh?

Thursday 29th August 2019:

It was a hot one yesterday so we tried to get out before the heat builds up.

We’re lazy.

It soon gets hot.

We go out for a run anyway.

Dave has a trot up to Lone Peak, because ‘why not’?

I take the slightly longer but not as steep track to the bit-below-the-steep-bit-of-the-climb and then retrace Dave’s steps to have a goosey-gander at the final run-in. It looks fun. There’s a long downhill followed by a punchy little ‘up’ bit to a jeep track, which keeps going up. I choose to save my legs and not run the jeep track, thinking that it’ll be dead obvious on the day (it is dead obvious, but it’s also not a jeep track for very long!)

It’s a Thursday so that obviously means Music in the Mountains festival down in town, right?! Apparently so. It’s a nice, random surprise that the whole town is in on. Good music, great food and a chilled atmosphere. Beats staring at a TV until sleep overcomes.

Friday 30th August 2019:

Striaght to Bozeman for the #bestcoffeeinmontana at a place called Treeline Roasters. It’s an hours drive to Bozeman. It’s worth it. It’s not only the best coffee I’ve had in Montana, it’s also the best one I’ve had in the US…so far.

On the way back Dave drops me in the lower of the Big Sky dynasties and I run back along a roadside trail into the middle dynasty. I finish with some strides as I did yesterday. My legs feel shit. The strides help. I’m still worried about tomorrow though. I have a feeling the best of the results was last week and that this one is going to be a bit flat. I’m not too upset by this realisation as I’m in Montana. It’s sunny and warm. The people are super friendly. It’s raining in the Lakes. It’s not the end of the world if I have a shitter tomorrow.

Well….it kind of is.

I’ve spent a while on the internet checking out the best pizza places in Big Sky and the local area for a pre-race feast. We settle on the Blue Moon. It’s not, as the name would suggest, a front for a Thai massage parlour.

The pizza I order is fucking gi-knock-a-pod. It’s too much and I feel like I want to make myself sick to clear some room. The US does good pizzas but not good like the Europeans do them. The grease threatens to drown me.

The pizza was a bad idea.

Saturday 31st August 2019:

I’m now 34. FFS.

There’s a race up a whopper, partially falling down mountain in about 2 hours and the power in the house has gone off. The trip for the fuse is behind a locked door in the main part of the house. I don’t have the key. It’s going to be one of those days.

It’s a chilly start to the day so when we get up to Big Sky resort/mountain/mountain resort/mountain village/anyother name we head to the nearest 5-star hotel for a sit down by the fire. A couple of poops precede a couple of km’s warm-up. I feel better on this, the legs are starting to wake up a bit after some strides and drills. The gut feels heavy though, the remnants of last nights pizza still weighing and mixing with the cold porridge I had this morning.

I stand on the front row of runners, more to look confident than because I feel confident. Any attempts at psyching myself up into ‘game’ mode are lost when I notice that I’m stood next to a dude wearing speedos (no shit).

I’m transfixed.

Where does he keep his gels? Should I ask him? I do. Sticks them next to his balls. Obviously. “What about chafing?”, I ask. “What about chafing?”, he replies, incredulously. This guy’s got something wrong in his head.

Luckily Mike Foote, the RO, starts his pre-start MC’ing so the conversation, such as it was, comes to an end.

And we’re off.

A group of about 5 or 6 hit off the front fast. I decide not to go with them, but settle in with 2 or 3 others about 50m back. The pace is decent but comfortable and that gap doesn’t grow. I know the rough splits to certain aid stations etc for what would equate to a good winning time and I’m a good few minutes off them. My stomach feels a bit peaky. I don’t want to eat anything and even drinking is a bit risky.

The pizza was a bad idea.

It’s single track and jeep track to the first aid station. No-one has passed me but I can’t help but think it’ll only be a matter of time. I’m still running with the small group I started out with. That lead group have gone. Just enjoy it I guess?

Straight after the first aid station comes your first downhill and a taster of the technicalities to come. It’s flippin’ loose. Big scree / talus blocks that you’ve got to negotiate at relative speed.

I must look like a pissed-up Cossack in a Greek restaurant.

Dinner plate sized graite slates flying everywhere as I all but cartwheel downwards. A guy passes me and builds a gap. Then so does another. FFS.

There’s a long drag up towards the boulder-field below the Headwaters lift station. From there it’s a FUCKING BASTARD of a climb to the aforementioned station. The thin veneer of rock sits atop an enormous sand-pit; every step forward is met with a backwards slip equivalent to two. It’s shit.

I’ve passed the race ‘favourite’ by this point. He’s not going well. In fact, he’s going backwards. I don’t know it, but I’m 5th at this point.

Probably now is a good time to highlight the best piece of racing advice I’ve ever been given (I can’t remember who gave it to me, or whether I read it somewhere, but whoever / wherever I got it from, THANK YOU). The advice is…

“Keep running, you never know what might happen…unless your legs have fallen off, in that case, crawl.” – Anon.

Passing Ben (the favourite) gave me a huge boost mentally (physically I still felt shit) and proved that mantra / advice above. The run along the Headwaters ridge is ace. Climb ‘one’ of ‘two’ nipped.

Next is the beast.

You rejoin some jeep track at the base of the Headwaters ridge and then it’s up, up, up until the summit of Lone Peak just shy of 4 miles away. It’s jeep tracks for half the way, up to the Swiftcurrent lift / aid station past the enthusiastic (and really annoyingly ‘American’ – sorry) crowds and onto the steepness. The first climb was shit. This one is next level.

The mental boost I got from before has started to manifest as a physcial boost too. I can run the majority of the climb to the ‘flat’ bit where Dave is waiting avec camera and spare bottle. Thank fuck he’s there!

The two guys who passed me earlier are well in sight. They’re walking. Well and truly walking. I’m running. Barely.

It’s farcical to look at.

This isn’t exactly ‘racing’!

Soon running becomes surplus to survival requirements and I too am reduced to the ‘retreat from Moscow’ slow march.

I lose them as they crest the summit and head off towards the descent ridge but am pretty soon back and gaining. The conservative start (not of my own doing) pays dividends as I’m moving fast on this shitty ground.

The Cossack is sobering up.

I catch them about halfway down but ease off and hold a good distance so as not to trash my legs. Lots of rock kicking and sex-pest heavy-breathing let them know I’m here. Partly it’s to scare them into going deeper into the red, partly it’s to make them think I’m also in the red.

I feel really fucking good now.

At the base of the descent there’s a short kick upwards. I drift back a bit here then, just before the top of the kicker, I hammer it. Flying (all relative) past a few metres before the ‘summit’, then carrying the momentum on th downhill on the other side. They’re, by now, shit on the downhills. Thank Vishnu it worked and I soon have a big enough gap to be able to be comfortable knowing that they ain’t coming back to me.

About 3km before the finish there’s a final, stinging, shit-in-the-tail. You reverse (i.e. go UP) a double-diamond downhill bike trail. It’s laughably steep. I feel like I’m going to start crying. I probably do.

A guy tries to high-5 me, I ignore him (sorry brah!) as I can see someone up the road. He looks fucked. I have to get him. I do.

As I go past it’s obvious why he’s going so slowly. A nasty cut on his head and slurred speech. A fellow Cossack! “Привет!”, I say to him as I pass. I warn the final aid station that he’s not in a good way and then sail off as hard as I can on the long downhill to the finish. Just in case they don’t hold him there!

3hrs 27mins 8secs gets me 2nd place. Didn’t expect that.

Later…

The Rut 28k is a really tough race. Really tough. I’m really glad I did it mind. The organisation is unreal. The atmosphere unreal. The prizes…unreal!!

On the VK the day before they were offering free mullets at the summit of Lone Peak!

There are free elk horn tattoos on offer at the finishline of each of the races (except maybe the kids race).

The top-3 overall in each race get a full-size wrestlers belt and prize money in $1 bills for the top-5; $1000 for the winner, $500 for second place, $350 for third place, $250 for fourth and $150 for fifth. Proper G-wad stuff.

We hit the town and, like true #lads, fill up on the best organic coconut water I’ve ever tasted.

Sunday 1st September 2019:

It’s been great seeing Dave again. I thought about it on the flight up from Bozeman to Seattle. He’s written a book. Made a feature-length film. Cycled across / around North America. Lived in 4 or 5 different countries. Turned down big money jobs in big money cities to stay in line with what he believes in.

He’s only just turned 30.

I feel a bit inadequate!

I’ve never been more excited to be on a plane to Seattle. I’ve got a 7-hour lay-over. It, ordinarily, would suck. Nicht nicht today. I have one of my oldest friends from uni days living there. Dom. He of ‘that’ fame. He’s got a wife and two kids now. Wowee! He’s a rockstar headteacher on roakcstar wages. He’s STILL an awesome, awesome guy. I’m not surprised in the slightest.

We head back to his. He politely, and in a roundabout way, tells me I stink. I do. I must still stink a bit even after my shower as he lets me keep his t-shirt. I, in turn, politely neglect to tell him I’m vegetarian when I come downstairs to see him halfway through cooking a whopper batch of scrambled eggs and bacon. It tastes good.

His wife and kids are awesome. He, again, is awesome.

It may seem like I love this man.

You know…..in a funny way I do.

Time is too short with good folks. It’s time to board the plane.

I don’t sleep well on the flight.

Monday 2nd September 2019:

I arrive to chaos in Manchester.

It’s 0850.

I start(ed) work in Whitehaven at 0830.

I don’t think I’m going to make it somehow.