The decision to quit

A few hours have passed since we pulled out of the race. The News is that Mick's eye infection is not serious and no damage has been done.

The team were moving well during the second night of the race, and we had every reason to be very positive.

After reaching the summit of Scafell and experiencing the full force of the foul weather we decided that making progress through the checkpoints was to be a pretty fruitless task, and that we would be better off hot footing it back to transition. Then getting on with the rest of the course before the weather had the chance to take its toll on our bodies too hard. I think it was a good decision, and would have probably seen us well set for strong final day without having lost that much (if any) time.

Mick had started to complain about his eye sight almost as soon as we started to descend through the boulder field. He was complaining about the depth of his vision, and was struggling to see where to put his feet. He was walking by feel and every step became a fumble. We had no choice but to wrap up in all our clothing to stay dry and slowly make safe progress off the mountains.

Moving slowly but consistently we made it back to transition at about 2:30 am. Like every other team, we were cold, but we were not too tired. Before Mick's eye problem our plan was to transition fast and to go off on the bikes fully clothed and looking for a warm place to stop and eat. Sleeping in these conditions is always a bad idea, as it often makes the situation worse. Because the body is so fatigued, despite wrapping up in all available clothing, survival bags and shelters you will still wake up shivering having had virtually no quality sleep.

With Mick's eye we had no choice, the medic advised us that it needed rest. We bedded down in the soaking conditions knowing that although Mick's eye would be closed and more comfortable, we would all be quickly getting hyperthermia with a rapidly reducing set of options to overcome it.

Sure enough, an hour later we all woke up shivering in a pool of our own condensation in the inside of a foil survival bag, the rain had by now, and despite our best efforts, soaked another set of clothing.

The Decision

For me the game plan was pretty simple. We had to get warm and dry. As there was nowhere at the transition for this to happen, we had to go off on the bikes and find somewhere. Once warm and dry, perhaps in a public toilet, B&B, cafe, or bus shelter, Mick could rest properly and we could make a level headed decision in the morning. Alex and Karen, and to some extent myself, were keen to move off towards Ambleside in search of this warm and dry place. Mick seemed to think he could ride a bike, but  to my mid this was a risk as we could find ourselves in a position where Mick could not ride his bike, and we would be a significant distance from any support if we needed to retire.

It was now about 5am, and the Stickle Barn cafe would not open for another 4 hours, by which time our hyperthermia would put us out of the race anyway. We were initially told the barn would open at 7am, making a tempting option of waiting for it to open, getting warm, sorted, take stock and make a decision purely on the eye and not hyperthermia as well.

We decided to move out of transition in search of somewhere warm, now thinking that the daylight would enable Mick to see better and the improving weather, mixed with a bit of physical effort would start the defrosting process. We had lost all hope of maintaining a reasonable race position now, so the decision to continue was purely a self preservation one, as even quitting the race at Langdale would mean a lot of time getting colder and wetter. We agreed that if we could not find warmth, or indeed that Mick's eye was too bad to cycle safely that we would call the emergency number or the emergency services.

Just as we were preparing to leave, another medic with more experience of eyes had a look at Mick's eye. James Thurlow came to advise me that she suspected an eye infection and recommended immediate treatment at a hospital. That piece of the puzzle was all we needed to hear, you would never risk anyones' sight for anything, least of all a little race in the lake district. Mick went to hospital, and the three of us rode to a cafe in Ambleside, on route to Pooley Bridge.

The race report on sleepmonsters.co.uk suggested that we were "not capable" of making the decision. I think this was very unfair, as the decision was, until the final assessment from the new medic came, about the choice between hyperthermia while Mick rested the eye for a while (as recommend by the medic), or to avoid hypothermia but potentially being stuck on the route with a semi-blind team mate and an epic retirement process ahead.

You don't just quit a race like this. There are so many things like this happening to all the teams that you really need to try and stay in the race, stay strong and healthy, well fed and hydrated and keep moral high. Adventure Racing is all about the team against the mountains, and the mountains always win. We aim to take pleasure out of our battles, and triumph comes through overcoming adversity, but there is always adversity.