On the Trail of the Lonesome Runner

In New Zealand, Britain's leading ultra endurance runner is closing in on a dream to complete the Te Araroa Trail, a 3,000km pathway which runs the length of New Zealand. He started the solo challenge on December 12. This is our conversation before he left.

 

Running from the top of North Island to the bottom of South Island along New Zealand’s Te Araroa Trail, a distance of 1,898 miles (3054 kms) in 50 days, is equivalent to running off-road between Rome and Moscow.

Jez Bragg is ready to face the ultimate end-to-end challenge, averaging 40-50 miles a day through challenging and remote terrain, dealing with climates ranging from sub-tropical to sub-arctic.

At times he will have to be self-sufficient when faced with long stretches across barren wasteland where his support crew will be unable to reach him.

The 31-year-old chartered building surveyor will spend Christmas and New Year pounding through the forests, along the beaches, and across a volcanic and mountainous landscape of a foreign land in pursuit of a new challenge, while his new wife Gemma waits for their honeymoon.

Bragg is Britain’s top ultra endurance runner, and one of the best in the world, admitting the sport is in his blood, a passion he developed via rugby and marathons.

 

He won his first endurance race in 2006 and has won races every year since, culminating with winning the challenging North Face Ultra Trail de Mont Blanc, one of the toughest in the world which he has contested 10 times.

Everyone will be able to follow him every step of the way through the internet, social media, blogs and GPS tracking so at any point of the day or night they will see exactly where he is.

Bragg, with a two-man support crew, will be one of the first people in the world to welcome in 2013. “I love roast dinners but that won’t be on my menu,” he joked. “We’ll have to celebrate Christmas and the New Year in some way though.”

He will be, as he pointed out, “living like a tortoise” but such has been his preparations, the North Face supported athlete has insisted on customised clothing designed to his exact specifications. “You have to feel comfortable, the material has to be right, it has to be light. Nothing has been left to chance.”

Bragg, 31, has spent the past year preparing for what he describes as this “epic adventure”, a solo, fastest time attempt to run the trail doubling his training runs from 140 miles to 300 a week.

 

In addition to running, when he expects to go through at least a dozen pair of trainers, Bragg will also have to negotiate various water crossings which form part of the official route, a down-stream paddle on the Whanganui River and the dangerous Cook Strait, which separates the North and South Islands.

Months spent on the water at Poole with his father-in-law Mark Taylor, an experienced canoeist who taught him how to kayak, is helping prepare him for the dangers he could face. A retired GP, his medical expertise is an essential part of “Team Bragg” on this expedition.

With swimming and cycling both making up part of his training programme, Bragg has not discounted an Ironman in the future. “Maybe I’ll string all three disciplines together,” he mused.

“This is what I was born to do,” enthused Bragg, who starts the journey on December 12, and believes he has the mental and physical DNA to succeed.

“I am stubbon, determined and decisive. Am, I selfish?,” he asked. “I would not say so, but there is an element of that in what I am doing because I am worrying my wife, family and friends.Outside of running, people will tell you I am the least selfish person there is, but there has to be an element of that in you to be doing this.

“You have to have that absolute focus, be prepared to sacrifice that family occasion so you don’t get overly tired, make sure you train hard enough, but I think many sports people can relate to that. It’s a bit ruthless. Friends and family understand as long as you are not going to be like that the rest of your life.

“Gemma is amazing, so supportive. This was all planned before I proposed and her support has been wonderful. She runs herself and is often on my case, dragging me out of bed at 5.30 in the morning to go training.”

Bragg’s best friend Jamie Ashwell, who gave up trying to compete with him when he decided to start long distance running rather than share a pint in a pub of an evening, is the other half of his support crew providing logistical back up, and accommodation en route where possible.

“We’ve spent the last year planning this and I am incredibly proud of what he is doing. Not many people have the mental toughness to do something like this, but Jez is pretty special.

“We are there to support him all the time, but there will be areas on the route where we cannot reach him and he’ll have to have a couple of days being self-sufficient, carrying everything so he can set up camp, eat and sleep,” Ashwell added.

The key to completing the trail in 50 days will be to keep the momentum going. “Rest days are often counter-productive,” Bragg insists. “This will push me beyond anything I have ever done before, but as for how much I do every day, I will decide on the day, depends how my body feels, what conditions are like.”

He fell into endurance running purely by accident after a childhood spent bike riding, climbing trees, playing rugby and being “relentless” at everything he did.

“My parents were not very sporty so did not give me this love of sport. It’s something I found myself. I ran 800m and 1500m at school only because I was no good at cricket. I had the pace from my rugby and then trained hard for the London Marathon [2001] purely as a one-off.

“Then I found I missed the training and thought maybe I could run a bit longer, go off road, and see how far I could get. I just fell into the sport entering crazy long races. I won the first race I did and most of them since,” he pointed out.

Bragg loves nothing more than pouring over maps, plotting routes over unchartered territory, finding training in his backyard in Dorset useful, but spends most of his time in the Scottish Highlands, Yorkshire Dales, Lake District and Snowdonia.

“I draw strength and inspiration from the environment I am running in but can find a training run from home very hard. There is nothing to focus on unlike running through the sounds and scents of a forest.  If I am navigating through a new landscape I am stimulated, my mind is absorbing it all. I don’t listen to music, I fit myself into the environment.

“If I am feeling a bit sorry for myself at any point, I look around at the surroundings and draw strength  from that and how lucky I am to be able to do this.”

His dad, who died six years ago, remains an inspiration to him. “My running would inspire him and it’s nice to continue to make him proud,” admitted Bragg, who draws his own inspiration and drive from stories of epic bravery and people who go through extreme experiences and come out the other side.

“You can be inspired by people far outside your sport but the whole idea of challenging your perception of boundaries, and how far we can push them.

“If I can inspire people to have a go at something they have never done before, then this expedition will have been a success in one area. I know this is the biggest test I will perhaps ever have, my body will take some months to recover, but I don’t want to have any regrets. I have to do this,” he insisted.

 

The Biggest Challenge

Band of Brothers Complete the World's Hardest Race

The Race2Recovery team of injured servicemen have returned home after completing the Dakar Rally, the first ever disabled team to cross the finish line. This is what it was all about.

"I am just a normal bloke". They will all tell you this.

"I would rather have not have been blown up. My future looked boring and bleak and I could have just sat down, felt sorry for myself but I am not like that," mused Capt Tony Harris, a below knee amputee and founding member of the Race2Recovery rally team, formed to take on the world's most challenging race - the Dakar Rally.

The Band of Brothers have only been together for 18 months, made up of servicemen wounded in combat with injuries ranging from spinal and respiratory to a double and triple amputee. They may have have to accept they will never see frontline duties again, but they will never accept defeat.

"Our injuries do not define us, our ambition does" insisted Harris, 27, who was a Captain with A Company, 2nd Battalion, Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, when his life changed forever. In 2009 he was injured in an explosion while travelling in an armoured vehicle in the treacherous Sangrin district of Afghanistan.

"There was unbearable pain in both my feet when the blast went off beneath the wheel as we ran over an improvised explosive device. I was relieved my feet were still there," recalled Harris. The shock waves through the metal shattered his heels. He also broke his left elbow when the impact threw him sideways.

His left leg was removed below the knee 10 months later after a further battle with infection. "We just took the patrol on that path that day, but I never wanted that day to be the last exciting thing I ever did in my life," Harris explained. "The Dakar will give me back my competitive edge, the rush of adrenaline I missed, and a huge sense of achievement. It has always been about completing the Dakar."

Capt Harris is not alone, joined in the team by Corporal Tom Neathway, of 2nd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment. A triple amputee he lost both his legs and an arm while on patrol in Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan in 2008. He triggered an IED when he moved a sandbag in an Afghan compound to take up a firing position. The blast took off both his feet, infection leading to the amputation of both his legs and his left arm.

They met while recovering at Headley Court, the army's rehabilitation centre in Surrey, where they came up with the Dakar dream. An opportunity to do some rallying was the spark. Monies raised from the challenge will go towards Tedworth House, one of five recovery centres set up in partnership between the Ministry of Defence, Help for Heroes and the Royal British Legion.

"I had to put my work on the backfoot for a while as the training became a full-time job," joked Neathway. "We have been serious about this all along, and using maps, a compass and bearings is very smiliar to being in the military. It is the same sort of mindset and we all support each other. It is about looking for normality."

The Dakar Rally covers 9,000kms in 15 days travelling through Peru, Argentina and Chile in some of the most picturesque but dangerous territory on the planet with terrifyingly high sand dunes, altitudes of 4,500m and temperatures in excess of 50C.

The Race2Recovery team only have the finish in their sights to become the first disabled rally team to complete the distance which even the most seasoned drivers and teams have failed to achieve in the past. Around 40 per cent of the teams taking part are forced to retire before the end.

Corporal Philip Gillespie was on his third tour of Afghanistan when he stood on an IED which blew off his right leg below the knee and caused multiple injuries to his left. He marked his 23rd birthday recovering in hospital.

"I had stayed conscious after the explosion but they sedated me. When I woke up in Camp Bastion I looked down and saw the stump was bandaged. The soldier mentality in me was to fight back and get on with life," explained Gillespie, from 1 Royal Irish.

The Race2Recovery team will field a handful of vehicles - four QT Wildcats and one Renault Kerax Truck - in the rally, with a full support crew with non-military members offering their expertise in competition and as mechanics. The support crew will also have the expertise to deal with the sand, dirt and dust that could get into the soldiers' prosthetic limbs. The cars can also carry 380 litres of fuel - each stage can be up to 500 miles - along with spare tyres and plenty of water, essential in the scorching desert heat.

For one family the Dakar Rally has a different but equally emotive meaning. Trish Chapman's late husband George commissioned the QT Wildcat to fulfil his dream of completing the Dakar Rally, but sadly passed away before he could attempt it. Trish, her daughter Joanna and son Adam, have been the strongest supporters of the dream, becoming official partners through their Orange Plant company, allowing the use of their Wildcat, with Gordon's name on the vehicle, in the Dakar.

Their training has taken them from the sand dunes of the South West of England to Morocco as well as training with the Devon & Somerset Fire and Rescue Service advising on emergencies including how to extricate themselves from a car that has flipped in its side by cutting through the front screen with a saw, and how to operate fire extinguishers.

They were also taught about treating spinal injuries, airway management and emergency life support by the South Western Ambulance Service. Paramedic Steve Morgan was full of praise for the men. "Even though we were teaching them, we learnt a lot. This team has a great zest for life and wish to live it to the max. They have tremendous psychological strength to overcome any barriers, and enjoy the challenges put before them."

Harris said the team have to be prepared for anything, and everything. "It will be a real endurance test for the whole team. To have the maximum skills and resources at our fingertips as well as feeling confident and as capable as we can be, we will work closely together to get to the finish."

Navigator Neathway added: "This part of the training was vital to me as I now feel confident I can cut myself out of a rolled car. Just because I have lost my legs and arm does not mean I am limited in what I do. There are problems being disabled, but you have to push through them and set new boundaries.

"All the men in the team who have served their country now want a new challenge in their lives. This is it and from this will hopefully come new careers in motorsport, marketing, engineering. The opportunites are endless."

 

The Wildcat race vehicle, named Joy, with driver Matt O'Hare and co-driver Corporal Philip Gillespie completed the Dakar Rally. The three other cars did not reach the finish line.

 

 

Queuing for a place at Rio Paralympics 2016

A Gamesmaker at 2012 has secured a place on the GB Paralympic canoe training squad for Rio 2016.

Mother of two Anne Dickins has, in just seven weeks, gone from a total novice in a canoe to being named in the squad after a chance encounter with development coach Colin Radmore at the London Olympics.

The 45-year-old physiotherapist joked with the former British slalom canoeist, who she met while queuing for a coffee at the Westfield Shopping Centre, he could have her on the squad if he liked, after explaining he was on a nationwide search for suitable athletes to train for Rio 2016.

Paracanoeing is one of two new sports accepted into the 2016 Paralympics, and Anne now hopes to be among the chosen few. She has already posted impressive training times for the 200m sprint. One of her initial training runs would have placed her 17^th in the world rankings for her category (LTA).

“The conversation that has changed my life only happened because we were both early for work that day. It was 6.30 in the morning and we were in a queue for coffee. It is unlikely we would ever have spoken, but we were both wearing our Gamesmakers uniforms, and just struck up a conversation. He told me he was on the look-out for athletes to train for Rio. I joked, “why not: take me”, she explained.

Anne, who broke her back while in her 20s and recently underwent back surgery after a second injury to relieve a spinal cord compression, was working with the physiotherapist team in the cycling velodrome where later in the day she recalled her chance encounter to colleagues.

“I was in a bit of a daze. It was meant as a joke to offer myself as a potential squad member, but Colin’s coffee was soon forgotten as he fired a barrage of questions at me about my back injury, weak leg and bike racing history,” recalled Anne, who two years ago raced to fourth in her age group on her debut at the World 24 Hour Solo Mountain Bike Championships.

She has clocked up numerous endurance titles since and was due to contest the 2012 world championships. She has not ridden her bike for almost a year after undergoing back surgery earlier this year, but has found the switch from pedalling to paddling a rewarding challenge.

Post surgery she still has a weak hip and leg, the canoe footwell having been adapted to give her more stability when paddling. The LTA category is for athletes with reduced use of their legs, with their arms and trunk working properly.

“I had struggled on in denial trying unsuccessfully to race my bike, becoming increasingly frustrated and depressed with my weak leg limiting me.

“I was really very down about it until I was given this opportunity to do something completely different. It was as if a light had gone on in my head and I had something positive to work towards again rather than standing at a dead end trying to 'ride my bike through a brick wall'.

“But in the time it has taken to eat half a muffin, I had gone from a frustrated endurance cyclist with a dodgy leg to a possible GB para sprint canoeist,” she explained.

Anne was told, after her first selection meeting she had to drop 15 seconds off her 70 second time to be anywhere near the criteria.

She waded in with what she describes as “brute force and ignorance” making weekly trips from her home in Oxted, Surrey to the National Watersports Centre in Nottingham, fitting gym work inbetween her job as a physiotherapist. “I have open blisters on my hands, aching shoulders and quite scary looking biceps. My body is changing as I adapt from cycling to kayaking and I adjust from being an endurance cyclist to sprint canoeist.

“Getting up at 4am and driving for three hours to train on the water, and then coming home to the kids, was something I had to do if I was going to make the programme,” she explained. “Things happen for a reason, I don’t know why this has happened to me, but I am determined to make it work.”

In addition to the tiring journey to Nottingham, Anne also trains at the Wey Kayak Club in Guildford under the critical, but encouraging, eyes of Claire Gunney, a former double British Kayak Marathon Champion and world number 2, practising technique until her body feels like a “rag doll” and her “hands bleed”.

She has been handed a four-year development and training programme which currently provides her with 11 training sessions a week in Nottingham and Surrey on the water and in the gym building up her muscles and using an indoor Ergo paddling machine to prepare her for a series of National Regattas in the Spring. Anne describes the training as "brutal" with a target of the European Championships in Portugal in June. If she medals there she will head for the World Championships in August, the start of her road to Rio.

“This is all very surreal for me but if I start doing well I will have to look seriously at how I balance my home life, the family, my business and my training. The children are behind me all the way, reminding me to do my training and encouraging me.

“If I make it to Rio I am going to be 50 which is just ridiculous,” she laughed. “The kids will be 20 and 18 and I will probably be broke! I’ve been using my cycling gear to train in so far, but as this moves on I am going to have to invest in some serious equipment and clothing.

“One door closes but another one opens. I still can't believe that I made it onto the GB squad never having raced a canoe and having spent nothing on canoeing except petrol and precisely £6.99 on a pair of boat shoes!

"It just goes to show that anything is possible if you are open to change, want it enough and have the correct support around you.”