The Man in the White Suit_ The Stig, Le Mans, The Fast Lane and Me - Ben Collins [56]
I became aware of something moving from cover to my left. There was a rustling sound as black shapes sped across the long dry grass, followed by several thuds and the familiar sound of bergens slamming into the deck. The lights went out. I never knew what happened to the guys wearing them.
Dawn came and went. Legs pumped endlessly through the day. The peaks of the Beacons National Park were withering. Daylight brought a fresh perspective and extra energy. I ran along the flats and caught up with Ninja at a queue for an RV point. Some boys lay poleaxed on one side whilst fluids were pumped intravenously into their arms. A more hopeful lad squeezed the saline bag and jogged on the spot to speed the process.
Ninja was hollow-eyed, shaking and confused, bordering on hypothermic. He was trying to get his Gore-Tex on but couldn’t even pull the zip, so I squared him away and we plodded on.
Legs pumped endlessly through the day. Pen Y Fan, again, was withering. As dusk approached once more we walked down a tractor track across an open field. I was a zombie, rifle flailing at waist height, legs on autopilot. There was a gap in the hedgerow ahead. As my right foot made contact with the solid incline of a tarmac road my face turned left towards the hill, then I heard a sharp metallic thwack.
My bergen picked me up and spun me through 180 degrees into the hedge. I looked up to see the back of a square-framed steel trailer, laden with canoes, winging past at a rate of knots. The front of the trailer must have caught the outer pouch of my bergen.
I kept monging along, remembering Plissken’s final words: ‘You don’t need to be superhuman, lads. You’ll all make mistakes, but you push it to the end.’
We had to cover 10km in four hours to make the cut-off. More than enough time to cover the distance in normal circumstances, but I knew I was losing the plot. Stomach cramps gripped me every 30 seconds. My head was pounding and my legs were so swollen that every step made my eyes water. I couldn’t eat anything except Jelly Babies, which were running out fast. One navigational error in the dark and we were done for.
‘Come on, Benny, we’ve got to do this,’ Ninja urged.
To be sure of reaching the end, it was time to start running. I closed my eyes, detached myself from reality and pounded up the incline. I heard a voice inside as every system in my body spoke with unanimous certainty: ‘You are going to die.’
All the pain could go away in a millisecond; all I had to do was stop, rap, throw away the bergen and sleep. I was bouncing off the limit of my physical endurance.
A lyric by The Killers popped into my head and offered twisted solace: ‘Smile like you mean it.’ I shouted the words like a lunatic with each breath. We finally crested a rise, contoured a wood and descended the ankle-smashing shingle of a dried riverbed. It was the hardest hour and a half of my life.
Moonlight bounced off the water of a reservoir ahead. The end was nigh and carried its own demons. Realising we would make it, my brain signalled its helpful endorphins to switch off. As far as the grey matter was concerned, the serotonin and dopamine had done their job. My legs returned to pillars of fire, the pit of my stomach tightened and gravity doubled.
I told Ninja to get lost. We couldn’t finish as a pair anyway, and I didn’t want to hold him up. I staggered the rest of the way, stopping for every third stomach cramp and dry retching the others on the move.
A golden head torch flickered in the distance. Voices … An unforget-table sense of euphoria grew inside me and made the pain irrelevant.
It was acutely personal. No car had carried me to this place, nor had luck. The training officer took my name and number at the final checkpoint. No one asked to check my Fucking Big Rock.
I slumped on my bergen in a shit state. One of the DSs handed me a brew with some ‘airborne smarties’ to kill the pain. It was the best tea I had ever tasted, followed