John Kynaston

The last contact I had with John was early this year when he left a comment on a blog post I had just published  -  "Great write up as always Andy. Looking forward to seeing how 2021 works out for you, especially how working with Dave Troman will help you. It will be great to run together at Deadwater but hopefully before that as well." Less than 24 hours later John suffered the heart attack from which he never recovered. The brutal unexpected shock will remain with those of us who knew him for a long time, the hole he leaves in the running community will last longer still. 

I knew John for more than a decade, and though we lived 250 miles apart and rarely met more than a handful of times a year, our friendship worked as though he lived next door. Many others will say the same, John was such an enthusiastic and prolific communicator; it was very easy to stay in touch.

It started I think back in the autumn of 2006, when both of us, from very different athletic backgrounds but neither having run an ultramarathon before, entered the following year's West Highland Way race. No ballot or race for places in those days of course, you just posted an application off to race organiser Dario Melaragni and he phoned you to assess your suitability, a conversation ending something like "Well I think you'll be OK then, just get some training in and I'll see you in June". While I quietly contemplated what on earth I had got myself into, John had already started a blog to record his training, thoughts and ambitions. In a time before established social media, the forums on event websites and blogs of competitors were the only way you could find out about what was going on, but even amongst these John's heart on sleeve attitude was already something a bit different. To an introvert like me, his confidence to share his thoughts with the world whether things were going well or badly was inspirational. 

John was of course a far better runner than me, getting under 23 hours for the West Highland Way at his first attempt and going on to record two sub 20 hour finishes in subsequent years. The race hooked me too though, and what I thought was going to be a one-off venture into the strange world of ultra-running back in 2007 turned into a major part of my life; I met John almost every year after that at both the West Highland Way and the Highland Fling, when he was either running himself or marshalling. I remember a couple those occasions especially. 

In 2011 after 4 consecutive high standard finishes, John set out with a target time of 21 hours. At a pace in line with my normal pedestrian finish in those days of around 26 hours, I was surprised on reaching the Glencoe checkpoint, about 72 miles in, to see him just leaving; he was having a tough time with a bad loss of energy and sore feet. I eventually caught him again and passed him at Kinlochleven. For such a good runner it would have been easily understandable for him to feel it just wasn't his day that year; call it a day and come back in better shape another time. Not John; he slowly and painfully walked it out, never for a minute considering giving up, to finish in his slowest ever time by a margin of about 5 hours.

He reminded me of this when I was sitting on the tailgate of my team's car in the Bridge of Orchy station car park in bright sunshine during the 2016 race. I was chatting with John who was crewing for a mutual friend of ours that year. I was feeling pretty sorry for myself, reflecting that attempting this event less than two weeks after completing the 190 mile Northern Traverse wasn't perhaps the smartest trick I'd ever pulled. I was way down on energy and motivation and maybe looking for confirmation that a withdrawal would be sensible, but sympathy wasn't forthcoming. John pointed out that I'd gone into this with my eyes open and there was more than enough time left to walk to the finish from that point should I choose to do so. Suitably chastened, that's what I did. But a spark was maybe lit the other way too because a couple of years later John ran the Northern Traverse himself.

Other vivid memories of John and the West Highland Way are the wonderful welcome my son (also John) and I got when he and Katrina marshalled at the bonfire at Lundavra as I struggled to a 30 hour finish one year, and the moment he presented me eventually with my 10th goblet at the finishing cermony in 2018, all those years after we started back in 2007.

Though not the media mogul bestriding the ultra-running world that he later became, many years ago John launched a series of podcasts devoted to the West Highland Way. I don't know how many there were eventually, I'm sure hundreds. I volunteered to contribute one in the early days, not realising that once JK got his "producer hat" hooks into you then there would be no escape, ever. I ended up doing quite a few for the West Highland Way series. Then recently when John found out that I was targetting the Hardmoors 110 for my main 2021 race, an event that at this stage of my career it is possible but by no means probable that I can complete, his immediate reaction was "Great, how about doing a monthly interview letting us know all about your journey to get there!". 

John stayed with his local races in Scotland for the early part of his ultra career, but was tempted south to the Lakeland 100 as its reputation and popularity started to grow. Many Lakeland runners have made use of the superb informative videos he produced on his reccies of the course with Dave Troman; by now John's meticulous preparations for his events were beginning to become legendary. His first attempt on the race was in 2012. I was running the Lakeland 50 that year, which used to start somewhat later than it does now, so for most of my race I was catching and passing Lakeland 100 runners. The convention was (and still is) that you give them a word of encouragement as you pass, as they have travelled 55 miles further than you by that point. My mind must have been elsewhere as I shouted a cheery "well done" to the figure I passed just over the crest of Gatescarth Pass, because I hadn't gone five yards past when a "Hey Andy!" wafted back. Of course it was John and we jogged and chatted for a few minutes, before I sped on in my pursuit of a respectable "fun run" finish. John seemed to me to be going well. He finished in 34 and a half hours, a time I would have put down as one of my finest achievements, but he was a bit disappointed. His spreadsheet told him he could get under thirty, so that was what he wanted. Three years later he was back. I was marshalling at the finish line in 2015 and made sure I was there at just after midnight to welcome him home and check him in with just  over 29 and a half hours on the clock. Job done.

Most of my conversations with John had naturally been about running, but November 2015 saw us both entered in the White Rose Ultra in the southern Pennines. He was down to do two laps of the 30 mile course while I was content with one. This meant that our chosen pace was pretty near the same for the first lap and we ran almost all of it together. The five hours or so that that it took allowed us to range wider over other topics. John told me of his early career in the East, while I was struggling with strife-torn British industry and helping to run a small engineering business. Since I left my roots in the Midlands much of my life has centred around Merseyside so we had a lot of shared knowledge of the area; I had to confess that we were on opposite side of the Great Divide as I had become a Red when I first moved to Liverpool to start a research degree in 1970. I even discovered that John had been good friends with the guy who had been the pastor at the Evangelical Church a hundred yards from our current house when we first moved there just over thirty years ago. It really is a small world. The only downside of the run was when the event photographer snapped us on the track up towards Wessenden Head with the words "Well done, old timers!"

"Old Timers"

I had a couple of attempts at the Dragon's Back in 2015 and 2017 but never got beyond the mid point of Day 3. I was carrying an injury both times but I think the main problem was that it was a race that just came too late for me, Father Time and deteriorating knees couldn't really be overcome. But John knew all about my attempts and asked me a year or so before the 2019 event whether I thought he could do it. With a sub 30 Lakeland under his belt I was sure he would be fine, but the unrelenting climbing and technical ground on the DB often takes runners by surprise, so I recommended he had a look at as much of the course as possible during the preceding year, so he could plan his training accordingly. I love the territory it goes through so offered to accompany him on any exploration he wanted to do.

Through the summer of 2018 we reccied the first three days of the race over three separate weekends and experienced nearly all the weather that Wales can throw at you. Day 1 was wall to wall blue sky and blazing sunshine. 

Sunshine at Pen-y-Pass on Day 1

Day 3 over Cadair and Plynlimon was generally more "Welsh", misty and chilly with bouts of wind-driven rain at times.

Bleaker weather on Plynlimon Day 3

But Day 2, generally accepted as the toughest day on the course anyway, was, to use a popular term these days, "biblical". We never saw a summit (or much else overall). We battled high winds over Cnicht and the Moelwyns,  got very nearly lost in the tortuous heather-strewn ground north of Cwm Bychan, and traversed the Rhinogs in a continuous downpour, including a thigh-deep wade over the col between the two eponymous summits. On this last outing I was equipped with tough waterproof trousers and a full-weight mountain jacket. John, as always, was wearing shorts.

(John always seemed oblivious to bad weather, it was just something that was part of the day out. One late evening in October as we were enjoying a meal at the finish of the 2016 Lakes in a Day event, when John had just said that his races were now done for the year, I persuaded him to join me at the inaugural running of the Wooler Trail Marathon in late November. On the day of the run there was a hard frost down to the village. All the boggy ground following the Pennine Way along the border fence was frozen pretty well solid. It was about minus 15 degrees as we traversed the Cheviot summit. John was still in his shorts.)

Start of Wooler Trail Marathon - the only shorts in sight

We completed Day 4 of the Dragon's back the following spring and John wiped off Day 5 during a visit to his father-in-law who lived nearby. He then put his plan together, followed it (including a few dozen ascents of his local hill Ben Lomond), and of course completed the race in good style. But I had so much "inside track" knowledge that it was easy for me to win his "Guess My Time" competition on this one!

I could reminisce about other shared moments, from the  Lakleand Trails 100k to the Grand Tour of Skiddaw, from Ring of Fire reccies to the "Beast from the East" Hardmoors 55 and so many more, but I'll leave those to think over in quiet moments in the future.

In a lifetime of climbing and skiing I have learned that you can at some times break all the rules and have a wonderful experience, while at others you can exercise all the diligence possible and still get bitten by the mountains. And so in life itself. One of my grandfathers had a hard early life as a soldier in the Boer War, before taking up a sedentary job as a chauffeur. He smoked for seventy years and his only exercise beyond middle age was to walk a few hundred yards to his local pub for a pint, which he did almost every night of his life. He carried on in good health until his mid-eighties, when he simply just passed away. But I have in the past six months now lost two friends, both fit and athletic way above being just good for their years, in their early sixties. Life it seems is not fair. The only way I can begin to make sense of this is to feel that we should focus not on the years we may or may not have, but in how much we put into those years; we really do need to "fill the unforgiving minute, with sixty seconds worth of distance run".

There was no better example of how to do this than John Kynaston.

RIP JK.

2020 - That was the year that wasn't.

Around this time of year I normally look back over the year just gone and try and preview a bit the one to come, but as we all know it's been a funny sort of year. Eight races that I had entered during the 2020 got either cancelled, postponed, or rearranged to a date that I couldn't make. I'm sure many other people had similar experiences. Disappointing but as runners we can always find some sort of way of getting out of the door if we're persistent; the guys who I really feel for are the race organisers who often moved heaven and earth to get their events on, usually to no avail and at a lot of personal cost, both financial and emotional. I hope as many as possible of them manage to survive to better times, we really need them.

But I did manage to get a few things done.

In early February, when Covid was just something happening elsewhere, we had more normal winter issues at the 43 mile Brecon to Cardiff Ultra. Storm Ciara was forcing the cancellation of events all over trhe country but the brave crew in South Wales held on and we were rewarded with a very windy, extremely wet but ultimately satisfying day out, which I finished in 9:29:48, nearly an hour slower than when I had last done the event two years earlier, but in the conditions that seemed good enough. A week later the event would not have been possible because the whole valley had by then flooded to dramatic levels forcing a lot of home evacuations.

Nearly a month later on the first day of March, it was a cold but crisp and sunny day for Beyond Marathon's 42 Mile Millenium Way. From Newport to Burton-on-Trent this was an easy and enjoyable day trip for me from Chester. It still had it's share of submerged riverside paths and a couple of miles of shin-deep mud at one point, but I managed to finish in 8:45:48.

Then came lockdown of course and I spent weeks running round my local lanes. Even the local Delamere Forest was closed.  During this period we saw the start of the "virtual" event, where competitors are invited to complete the the mileage involved in the cancelled real one but at a location they can access, usually over a defined time period. I didn't really see the point to start with but then the West Highland Way version arrived. Before the Covid thing I had a sort of plan to enter the West Highland Way in 2021 and make it my 100th ultra; it was where it all started for me back in 2007 and I had been involved almost every year until recently.  My plan wasn't going to work now, the 2021 race would be full of entrants rolled over from 2020 and it was very unlikely that I would find enough events still running to get me to 100 by June 2021 anyway. So I joined the 2020 virtual event just to stay in touch. We had from 11th to 21st June to rack up the required 95 miles, but I decided that if I was going to go virtual I wanted to make my experience as close to the real thing as I could. Our local forest and the Sandstone Trail were accessible again by June; I couldn't sensibly arrange back-up for a continuous push, and local opinion would still have frowned on being out through the night, so I went for three consecutive days and arranged my route so that my total ascent would match that of the real race. It worked out as:

Monday 12th:        36.0 miles  4800ft ascent  8:23:50

Tuesday 13th:         27.0 miles  5800ft ascent  7:37:10

Wednesday 14th:     32.0 miles  4700ft ascent  7:25:38

Totals:                       95 miles   15,300ft ascent  23:26:38

It was very hot weather at the time, with thunderstorms each evening, but I actually enjoyed the experience quite a lot, even though some tracks and ascents had to be covered many times. Clearly the time out each night made a huge difference, but it was still nice to get a sub 24 hour West Highland Way  -  many years since I last achieved that!

We were able to get back to the Lakes again in July, which allowed me to enter my second virtual event, the Lakeland 50. I originally thought I might do this on the actual course, but on reflection I wasn't too keen on using public transport to get to the start and finish (I am after all in a "vulnerable" group!) so I constructed a 50 mile route based on our place in Keswick. It was a bit short on height gain compared with the real route but a bit tougher under foot so I guessed about the same sort of challenge. I completed my route in 14:47:38 and had the bonus of meeting Lakeland organiser "Uncle Terry" Gilpin, out for a walk with his grandsons, as I descended Far Easedale.

Some races had started to get going again by August but the one I had entered, the GB Ultras "Race Across Scotland" wouldn't work, I guess because of its proposed use of many village halls and the understandable reluctance of the communities it would have passed through. Looking around for something to focus on, I decided to have a shot at the Abraham's Tea Round which seemed to be gaining some popularity and was right on my doorstep, with the start and finish of the round at George Fishers in Keswick. It's not a long trip at just over 30 miles, but the 11,000ft of ascent and the steep ascents/descents in some places are well felt. I was hoping to get under 12 hours but on the day could only manage 12:34:49   -  I guess a return match is probably called for. Maybe I was short of climbing for the year.

Organised events resumed for me at two Beyond Marathon races in September.  The Gritstone Grind follows the 35 mile Gritstone Trail in East Cheshire. I'm surprised I wasn't more aware of this trail before, it's far more attractive than the Sandstone Trail on my doorstep in the west (but also with double the climbing!).  I finished in 7:52:36 which I was fairly happy with, even though my son John with whom I'd shared a car to the start managed to get it done in under 6 hours.

A week later the White Horse 50 took me to an area I'd never visited before, the downs around Marlborough in Wiltshire. It's gentle, easy countryside, attractive in a wide open spaces sort of way, sparsely populated. There was only just over 4000ft of climbing on the whole course, still, I'm happy to get inside 12 hours for any 50 miler these days so was satisfied with 11:37:39.

Sterner stuff a month later with the Hardmoors 55, rescheduled from March, my eighth time on this particular run. Warmer weather than at the normal time of year for the race, but still with the expected ration of wind, rain and mud. 15:17:06 was half an hour faster than last year for me but still nothing to write home about. I had the feeling that as the year went on I was losing ground a bit.

After this, all the events I had planned got binned in the second and subsequent lockdowns. Virtual events started springing up again aplenty but I wasn't sure this was the best use of this bit of my life. I decided that if I wanted to make a better fist of next year than I had this then just chasing a lot of slow miles wasn't the way to go.

After a bit of thought I signed up with coach Dave Troman, a friend who I have known for quite a few years, in the hope that I can hopefully slow down my decline and maybe even make some marginal gains, with a main target of completing the Hardmoors 110 at the end of May. Just over two months into my training programme I'm really enjoying the change and the discipline, so more enthusiastic about the future than I was in the Autumn.

Just to tie up the statistics, I ran a total of 1983 miles in the year which is fairly typical for the past few years. I climbed a total of 174,000ft, which is way down; in recent years I have normally ascended around 100,000ft more than this, whether this affected my performance in the hillier events like Abrahams Tea Round and the HM55 I don't know, but it won't have helped. For the third year running I also failed to "run the year" (ie 2020 miles in 2020), although I'm really not concerned about this. I could have made up the miles needed easily but made my decision to go for quality over quantity when I started with Dave and I'm more than happy with that.

So what about next year?

Well as I said earlier my main target is to complete the Hardmoors 110 at the end of May. It's the only one of the classic "hilly" 100's that I should be able to do (the UTS is alas now way beyond me I suspect) and yet have never got around to. Ten or even five years ago I would have felt completion was not an issue, I would have been more interested in getting some sort of time that I considered respectable, but nowadays it's very much on my limit. It's five or six miles further than the Lakeland 100, with almost exactly the same amount of total climb; better ground under foot but four hours less to get round. What it doesn't have though is the Lakeland's "look after you at every step" checkpoints every few miles. Only two indoor checkpoints with hot drinks at around 20 and 70 miles (and since Covid, not even these), otherwise cold water and a few sweeties in between is all you get. This is because it is designed as an event where most competitors will have a support crew, and to gain admission to run unsupported you have to have some sort of proven pedigree. I have tried it once before, unsupported, in 2019. Carrying enough food to make progress possible and enough kit to cover both the roasting sun and driving overnight rain we experienced during the event, I ran out of time after about 80 miles. You don't start any event believing you will fail, but those where it is a distinct possibility definitely have more spice than those where you know you will finish, so I can't resist another go. With a bit more focussed training and (hopefully) a support crew I should be able to make a better showing this time.

In discussion with Dave T I've tried to plan other events earlier in the year to support rather than conflict with this main goal. A long time ago I had entered Lady Anne's Way which this was due to go on 30th of January. It wasn't an ideal interruption to the plan, but I was still enthusiastic about the event and had decided to go and treat it as  a longish walk to minimise the effect.  It's now been understandably cancelled and I have no idea yet when/if it will be re-run so I'll deal with that when we know more.

At the end of February I'm planning to run the Northumberland Coast Ultra. This is a short (35 miles) flat event which I have run before. It's a beautiful coast and the run fits well with development towards the Hardmoors.  The organisers Endurancelife always base their events on lightweight outdoor checkpoints with very little faff and have managed to keep a lot of them going through last year, so I'm pretty hopeful that this one will go ahead.

I was a bit regretful not entering the Hardmoors 55, it's one of my favourite events and I do hope to complete 10 of them before I get too old, but a tough event at the end of March didn't really fit the plan.

Then at the end of April I'm entered into the Open Adventure Lakes Traverse. This is a 60 miler which takes arguably a lot of the best parts of the Northern Traverse, run concurrently and which I really enjoyed back in 2016. I will take it at a reasonably comfortable pace, and as well as enjoying a great event in (hopefully) some improving weather for the year, I will get a good "time on feet" day about six weeks out from the Hardmoors.

Beyond May I haven't planned so rigorously, I'm waiting to see how the first half of the year turns out!

I have a deferred entry in the Lakeland 50 which I will definitely do at the end of July, and also one in the Race Across Snowdonia a couple of weeks earlier. I'm really enthusiastic about the latter event, it's a sort of two day version of the Dragon's Back and definitely due to become a classic if Mike Jones at Apex can get the first one or two off the ground, but it may be just an event too far for me this year, I'll judge nearer the time.

One I definitely don't want to miss though is Deadwater in late August. I did this when it was last run three years ago and it was overall one of my best experiences in ultra races.

Other deferred entries are the Lakes in a Day in October and Tour de Helvellyn in December, and I also have a voucher for a GB ultras event at some point. And I still have to get the Joss Naylor Challenge done at some point. Covid permitting, looks like a good enough year ahead.