Push on! These words flowing in my veins
Have a little war inside me[Lady Pank – Mała Wojna (Little War)]
Skrzyczne, 27 January, 2:30 am. I leave the hut, run down the turnaround and throw myself down the Wuthering Heights for the fourth time. The wind is blowing as never before. Or maybe like in 2015. Back then the blizzard blew the footprints over too, but now there's also a total whiteout. I run down the hill the way I like, e.g. fast. In my headlamp I can only see the fog and snowdrift, all that with maybe 3-metre visibility. Only sometimes I can discern a blinking marking light or a reflective tape. A few minutes later I take a fall into the snow just before the edge of a cliff. Really would prefer not to fall down there. I must have left the course. Gotta get back up, just don't know how far.
* * * * *
Forecasts proved correct
Szczyrk, 26 January, 12:00 pm. It's always good to meet fellow nutters. There is no better place for it than the amphitheatre below the ski jumping hill on the last Saturday of January at high noon. We set off up the snowy boulevard along the Żylica river. This is already my fourth Zamieć. Yeah, this race is called Blizzard. 24 hours of running on a loop of ca. 14 km with 900 vertical metres from the town to the summit of Skrzyczne (1257 m a.s.l.) and back.
A while later I painfully hit the ground with my hip. It was not supposed to be slippery, just heaps of powdery snow, so I left the spikes in my dropbag. And indeed it will not be, except for the start and finish bits on each loop...
A single file of racers walks up the path broken in the snow. Broken, big deal. You can't break a path in this powder. And more snow keeps falling from above. The first loop is always a nice warm-up and chinwag with friends. It's already the third time here for Chloe. Mervyn is a rookie, like most of the foreign bunch. In a varying line-up they've shown up here since the beginning of Zamieć. It's always fun to hear them try to pronounce Szczyrk and Skrzyczne.
That's Szczyrk, a town in Beskidy
No Belgian can pronounce it unless his teeth are gritted
The creme de la creme of the ultra world in a
Show with everything but Kilian Jornet
I drop them on the downhill just before the safety net that protects the ski piste. We climb up the crest where the wind is picking up, just like all the forecasts predicted. I reach the top of Skrzyczne in two hours and a dozen or so minutes. Never been so slow, but also never been so much snow. When I leave the hut, Marta just comes in. It's her first ultra race. Jarek, another one from our crew, is even better – he chose this as his first ever fell race. Good choice, innit...
Just before the last little col I see a slowly walking racer wrapped in a rescue blanket. He seems to be injured but has company and looks safe. I hit the end of the loop at 3h24. Even in the powdery snow two years back it took me three hours sharp, and in the last "spring" edition it was 2h11 without any hurry. Experience however shows that every single Zamieć is different and it's more or less useless to make any assumptions as to the number of loops before the start. I don't stop even for a while. Just unwrap a chocolate bar and start chewing it while walking up the boulevard to start loop two.
Time flies, doesn't seem a minute
Since the Beskid Cinema had the running boys in it
All change, don't you know that when you
Race at this level, there's no ordinary venue
It's Mont Blanc or Lavaredo
Or Hardrock or, or this place
Wuthering Heights
The field is already well scattered by now and most of the time I yomp alone. Only sometimes I'm being overtaken by faster racers who had decided to take a rest at the HQ. Since the beginning of the climb I've been slowed down. The steep traverse still feels alright but the long, neverending hairpins in the falling darkness are slowly getting on my head. The rut broken in the deep snow is filled with powder on which you can't normally run or even walk. Just before reaching the crest I light up my headlamp. At least the blizzard has eased a wee bit. My split time at the top is even more pathetic.
The open downhill section is however exposed to the wind and blizzard as usual. Wuthering Heights, as I start calling it. I overtake a dozen or so racers, even though my legs give way in this powdery snow. Just one runner somehow keeps up. I only let him go at the flat section, when my quads are burning and I'm out of breath. – Got spikes? – I ask. He needn't reply, I can see the gear on his shoes in the light of my lamp.
As it turns out, even in those conditions microspikes can come in handy. When it comes to gear, I've been wearing my walking boots and gaiters right from the start. I'd known there wouldn't be much running anyway, and when it comes to downhills, I can do them even in fins. At least my feet are dry. My own Zamieć spoof of "One night in Bangkok" by Murray Head springs to mind again...
One race's very like another when your balls are warm and your feet dry, brother
If you don't climb it, that would really be a shame, this mountain with an unpronounceable name
The next steep downhill has already developed steep ruts, so I just slide down on my feet. Both long flats in the dark are just hard on your brain, only the short vertical between them gives some break. The shorter racers will probably get neck-deep in the snow gorge that formed at its beginning. Two clicks before the end of my second loop I meet a runner who's feeling really sick. Better not leave him alone, so I stay with him right to the HQ. One has to be a gentleman once in a while. Together we pass a party bunch at a bonfire who will be cheering us till late night.
I've already mentioned I'm into making up lyrics while pushing on. The Polish band Nocny Kochanek, who make brilliant spoofs of the metal genre themselves, will become my target on the next climb. I'll even sing it at the most tedious bits...
Gentlemen of Zamieć, Skrzyczne by night is the shit
Gentlemen of Zamieć, broken nose on the downhill bit
Gentlemen of Zamieć, isotonic, sweat and blood
Gentlemen of Zamieć, will be yomping all night long
Those couple minutes don't really matter, especially that I need some rest myself too. At the last downhill we both take falls within a minute. It only confirms my decision to put the spikes on for the next loop.
Rebirth?
Being so slow, I realistically estimate my result at five loops. Won't be getting any faster for sure, and to do six I would have to keep the same speed as before. I'm generally feeling weak. My good shape from last summer and autumn is long gone. After the race of my life at the Hell of Czantoria I had to quit running for a month to give my knees a rest and it's been a downward slope since then. I was out of shape at the New Year's training camp in the mountains, and besides that I haven't run that much recently.
After two loops without a break I give myself less than half an hour to eat and drink. Bullion, tomato soup, pasta with meat and vegetarian stuff – I grab whatever grub I can. I fill my flask with cola and a pocket thermos with hot tea. Thanks to it on my loop three I'm feeling much better. Maybe thinking about a personal intention while running only helps the runner, or maybe not, I don't know. It's not really about religion, more like faith. I wish it helped not just me.
Even the long hairpins somehow go easily this time. My poles often get stuck in deep snow but are still of help. At the top I take a gel and chocolate bar. Now armed with microspikes, I run all the downhills like crazy, especially that just below the summit the snow becomes frozen. Even the mentally tiring long flats pass quickly and I finish this loop in 3h40. Not bad at all. Going for six?
Find your thing
The dream of six loops bursts like a bubble right at the start of loop four. I set off almost without stopping, having just refilled the flask and had a banana. It's half an hour till midnight, not even the halfway time, but all I can do is crawl at the snail's pace. I stop counting the racers who overtake me up the hill. Luckily at the hairpins two girls catch up with me on their third loop. I stay with them until the top, and a nice talk helps beat the boredom of the climb.
At the windswept crest all I can see are snowflakes in the light of my lamp. There is a few degrees centigrade below zero but the windchill must be reaching double figures. Despite having thick gloves I can't feel my fingers. Not the first time tonight, but that's typical with me.
One night on Skrzyczne and the world's your ultra
The peak's your temple but the climb ain't free
You'll pay with sweat on every loop of snow white
And if you're lucky then your arse won't freeze
May your guardian angel take good care of thee
At the hut I have a few pics taken by the wonderful photographer Karolina Krawczyk. Zamieć wouldn't be the same without her. Doesn't even matter that all will probably come out with my mouth full as I was chewing on a chocolate bar.
I hoped to use the loo but the door to the main room is closed. It's impossible to find a place protected from the wind outside, so I'm forced to look for my tool in the freezing cold. Just don't do it against the wind...
It's 2:30 am. I run down the turnaround and throw myself down the Wuthering Heights for the fourth time. The wind is blowing as never before. Or maybe like in 2015. Back then the blizzard blew the footprints over too, but now there's also a total whiteout. I run down the hill the way I like, e.g. fast. In my headlamp I can only see the fog and snowdrift, all that with maybe 3-metre visibility. Only sometimes I can discern a blinking marking light or a reflective tape. A few minutes later I take a fall into the snow just before the edge of a cliff. Really would prefer not to fall down there. I must have left the course. Gotta get back up, just don't know how far.
One night on Skrzyczne makes a hard man humble
Not much between despair and ecstasy
One night on Skrzyczne and the tough guys tumble
It's blizzard, whiteout and insanity
I can feel the devil running next to me
Yeah, blizzard, whiteout and insanity... that's the name of the game. And not just one devil but two. Namely Renata and Łukasz, a married couple I know from another race. Tonight they've been overtaking me up the hill and I was catching up on downhills. Now we all lost our way in the same place. I climb up some twenty metres to see a tree stub with a green trail mark and call out for them. One of the top runners speeds past me. We are safe on the right trail again.
Again I find my inner downhill demon. But what I make up at the breakneck slide, I lose at the bumpy flat. Łukasz and Renata catch up and go ahead. The whole "downhill" to the finish line is just one long crawl in the powder with a few steep and nice bits thrown in for fun. Below the clouds we can now see the lights of Szczyrk. At the last 3 km-long straight I'm happy to catch up with the two girls I met at the climb before. We run or walk like ducks, making fun of it together.
I drop them at the last steep downhill and cross the line at 3:46 am. That's 15 hours and 46 minutes since we started. I will not suddenly find a superhuman strength to squeeze two more sub-4h loops. It's not the "spring" race from last year where I ran seven loops and when I was in a better shape. The conditions are as they are but also I've just run out of energy. The time for the last one seems unlimited but I feel so knackered that just moving my arse out there will become quite a challenge.
Celebratory lap
Bullion. Pasta with stuff. Talking to fellow runners who are too battered to do one more loop. Tomato soup. Cola. Tea. Changing my clothes in the dropbag room, warming up, more chinwag. Banana, dried fruit, cookies. More cola. Two hours pass this way.
Time to make a move. No musings or what-ifs, just go ahead like a mule. "Push on! These words flowing in my veins...". At 5:45 am the measuring mat beeps when I cross it. I walk up at a relaxed pace but that's the fastest I can go now. At the steep traverse I switch my headlamp off. For a long time the sun cannot decide whether to show up between the horizon and the clouds, finally preferring not to. The crest is covered in clouds, wind and blizzard. At the hut I take another rest.
The Wuthering Heights are in the complete whiteout. The wind still tries to blow my head off and the footprints are blown over. I run fast but carefully, doing my best not to get lost again. It only gets quieter at the bottom of the first downhill.
The steep slide is pure fun. So is the flat bit, as I can already smell the finish line. Spruces covered with frozen snow take fantastic shapes of bell towers, birds' beaks or aliens. Just below the vertical I catch up with Aga. I once met her before at he HQ. We stay together till the end of our last loop. She is doing her fourth. We have a nice chat, there is no hurry, it's our celebratory lap. We cross the line for the last time at 10:14 am.
In the meantime all my Polish-Belgian-Dutch-German-New Zealand mates show up, one by one. Daniel did the most loops, five just like me. His first four were way faster but he got so knackered that he needed a kip in our rented house, and then came back for one more in the morning. While we're sitting at the table drinking beer, he still has icicles in his beard. Looks like we are bound to do the same number every year. Previously we both clocked seven. Marta also did great. In her first ever ultra race, and in winter, she ran 56 km and 3600 vertical metres in four loops!
And what about my hard-fought five? 70 km with 4500 metres up is the same as I did back in 2015 and 2017. That was the minimum. The 40th place out of 180 racers is nothing to be ashamed of. As I mentioned, in a better shape I would easily do six, despite the toughest conditions in the history of Zamieć. On one hand I wish I'd done more, but on the other you can't stay at your peak all year round. I keep coming back to this race for the friendly atmosphere created by Ania and Michał with the crew and for all of you, fellow runners! Now it's time for sensible training as my next mountain challenges come only in June, and the second half of the year will bring two most important goals.
Kamil Weinberg