The Dragon’s Back Race by Katie Cole

It’s been 6 months since I last wrote in this blog. As is the way of life, a lot has happened in those 6 months but the constant theme, always there in my daily thoughts,  has been the Dragon’s Back Race.  At times it has loomed like an insurmountable challenge, at other times it has kept me focused, giving me a reason to make conscious, positive steps forwards in so many areas of my life. By very consciously committing to training and preparing for it I have also committed to clearing some of the very negative patterns that in the past would have prevented me from even getting to the start line. In many ways the journey I have taken in getting to the start line of the event has been as (or possibly more) fundamental to me as a person than doing the event itself. This is quite a valuable thing for me to internalise, as it allows me to begin to let go of the need, the attachment, to completing the event itself. My intention is of course to complete it but if for some reason that doesn’t happen, I can more easily accept not completing as part of the bigger picture of my own personal journey.  

There are so many reasons for undertaking the journey that is the Dragon’s Back, undoubtedly as many reasons as there are people entering it! I use the word journey very consciously – for me personally it is not a race, it is not a medium to prove myself or my running. It has been and will continue to be, an adventure, a way of connecting more deeply with what I love and a way of experiencing the freedom that comes from consciously working through the things that scare me and challenge me.

I didn’t grow up in the mountains, far from it. As a child from inner city Southampton my world was big buildings, constant traffic and humans who, quite frankly, scared me. My family didn’t really engage with the outdoors, apart from the occasional walk in the New Forest with our dogs. However, from the day I picked up Joe Simpson’s Touching the Void, aged 8, I was thrown into a world of adventure and exploration, both of the natural world and of personal limits. From then I avidly consumed as many of the great mountaineering and adventure books that Southampton Library could provide me with. Although I was living in the mountains through the written word, I knew one day I had to go and experience similar journeys for myself.

Then came a period of my life where many events I had experienced until then – sexual abuse, bullying, a turbulent home and school life, lead to me press the self-destruct button. All thoughts of adventure and the possibility of a life outdoors were extinguished in depression and anorexia and the carnage that comes with being treated for mental health issues as an adolescent and young adult. I did attempt an ascent of Kilimanjaro for charity as an 18 year old, which on reflection should have been exciting at the time, ended for me just one camp from the summit, being carried off with cerebral edema. I was bitterly disappointed in myself for having ‘failed’, particularly after all the fundraising support people had shown me. 

Being incredibly hard on myself when I perceive I have failed is one of those patterns of behaviour that I am now aware that I do and have written about before. As such it’s something that I have continued to work on very positively in the journey to the Dragon’s Back.  I have learnt that pushing and driving ourselves hard for a goal might feel good, giving us a sense of being in control of our destiny but it is often not sustainable. Finding ways to be gentle with ourselves when we are pushing out of a fear of not achieving something is incredibly important. I would not be at this point, injury free and feeling ready to start the Dragon’s Back on Monday morning if I had not listened to my body properly and been gentle when I needed to be over the last 7 months since being injured at UTW. 

‘When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be…’

Lao Tzu

There have been times in those last 7 months when I have had huge doubts, nearly to the point of pulling out of the Dragon’s Back. January and February were particularly hard months for many reasons, family challenges, the flu and what felt like constant fatigue left me feeling the old tendrils of depression creeping in once again. I just could not muster the enthusiasm to do the training that I knew I needed to do. In particular, I was really struggling with having returned to Southampton to see my family over New Year. It brought up a lot of anger and sadness from my childhood there, which I realised I was still yet to clear. Seeing my brother, Andy, was hard, as the brain and spinal tumours he has been battling with for years are now so gradually and insidiously eating away at him in palliative care. I felt so useless for him. But I also know that he is on his own journey as we all are.

However, after a conversation with Andy in February, when he said he would still one day like me to take him up Cadair Idris, I decided that if I couldn’t take Andy to the mountains, I could send a little bit of them to him. So I started with a new found energy to get out again, beginning with my favourite local hill, Rhobell Fawr. I took a little video from the top for Andy and he loved it. I went on to take little videos on all of my mountain runs and DBR reccies. I was doing the training for myself, as I am very much doing the Dragon’s Back for myself but Andy provided me with a motivation, an inspiration when I was struggling to find it within myself.

So tomorrow I will take the first step, and the next, and a few more after that, on the route of the Dragon’s Back Race. Undoubtedly there will be ups and downs, both physically and metaphorically (there is 15, 500m of ascent after all!). My aim is to finish in Llandeilo and to be conscious in each step along the way, not wishing I was somewhere else or getting caught up in catastrophising, creating fearful stories of not being able to keep going, questioning whether my body can do it or feeling overwhelmed by the size of the challenge. It is an opportunity, an adventure to be relished both in the times I am alone and with the other participants and the support team, who will no doubt each be experiencing their own very unique journeys of the Dragons Back Race. 

How exciting!

Katie on the finish line of the Dragon’s Back Race ©Bib number photography

Owning it….

Since finishing the Dragons Back Race I have started two blog pieces but could not finish either of them. It has taken a long time, far longer than I ever expected, to be able to fully reflect on that particular running journey and indeed, what has come up in the months following.

Part of my inability to share any experiences of doing the Dragon’s Back has been around owning it. Until this week, there has been a real block to me accepting, at a very deep level, the strength, tenacity and motivation I had and still have, which allowed me to finish that race. At the time, I found myself disconnecting from each day, each step, in order to survive it, to the point where it felt like someone else had run it in my body! It is a strange sensation, a melting pot of exhaustion, heightened emotions, pleasure, pain and fatigue, all rolled into one moving mess, simply trying to get to the end. An awful anti-climax followed that week in May. I had wanted so much to be present to each step of the journey but I was not. However, what I learnt about letting go of a need for things to be a certain way, as a result, made that commitment to finish so worthwhile.

This week I returned to Fan Brycheiniog, one of the last summits on Day 5 of the Dragon’s Back route. I went back there for a reccie run on a stormy, wet day, where I struggled to keep my footing and was blasted sideways by the wind. My previous memories of that summit were dark and despairing, a very physical sense of my body breaking down beneath me, my knees crunching and giving way, stumbling and tripping. I wanted so much to stop and rest and yet felt so desperate to keep moving, to get to the finish. I almost caved in on those last few kilometres on day 5, knowing that I was so close and yet so far, from it being over. But on my reccie run this week, despite the challenging conditions, in fact maybe because of them, I felt the strongest and most flowing I have felt in a long time.  I knew I had the skills, the experience and the knowledge to read the conditions and could manage the terrain and my planned route. Returning to that place brought back those very visceral memories of the effort that went into getting to that point on the Dragon’s Back and finally, I was able to own what I had achieved in that week. I thoroughly enjoyed being back on that hillside.

‘Owning’ what is mine to own, taking responsibility for my feelings, actions, behaviours, failures and successes, personally and in interaction with others, is very much in focus for me at present. For various reasons anxiety and fear have been common feelings recently. As feelings they seem overwhelming but they are simply like a fire alarm indicating where the real fire, the real source of the discomfort is coming from. For me, this stems from what has carried through from when I developed my core beliefs at a young age, a sense of never being good enough, feeling judged, unloveable, bad or wrong. We may believe we are victim to other’s actions and words and feel wronged or hurt by those around us. But actually, I believe it is our choice as to how we respond, how we allow our own triggers and patterns to repeat hurt and pain, or whether we choose to press pause, be conscious to what is happening and as an adult, choose to think and do things differently. Not that we should just accept genuine cruelty, aggression or attack from others but we can either react to it through our own filters and allow it to hurt us more or see it for what it is, someone else’s reaction to their fears and baggage, which is not ours to own. It is hard to do, but we have the choice.

It is not easy taking ownership for what may be perceived as our weaknesses and adaptations which, although can be negative in the long run, develop early on to allow us to feel an immediate sense of safety. I would prefer personally not to have developed the adaptations that I have….. of people pleasing, of not being able to speak my opinion, for fear of criticism, of always placing others and their feelings way before my own to the point that how I’m feeling doesn’t matter. I wish I could always be the bubbly, confident, outgoing person I aspire to be, caring about others and myself at the same time. I know deep down that is my truth and in being conscious and truthful in my decisions and actions, I am moving closer to who I am, not what I think others expect or want me to be and not what I believe keeps me safe, which in reality keeps me restricted. 

I am learning to truly own all that is mine, my achievements and my downfalls and everything in between. As brutal as it is, it feels good that I am engaging with this journey, in the most honest way possible. Being true to ourselves allows us to be truthful with others, which helps breed trust and respect, a lesson I am owning right now….along with the acceptance that I did indeed run a long way, back in May! 

Blog taken from running 2 be free

Katie returning to Fan Brycheiniog after her Dragon’s Back Race experience