Interview: Paul Hayne - MDS 2011

What year did you do the MDS?

I did the 26th MDS-2011

Where did you finish?

I finished 495th out of 849 competitors. Although I am a competitive person, for me it was all about finishing the MDS. Could I have gone quicker on hindsight? No, I just wanted to finish!

The fear of not finishing was huge for me and really got me through the tough moments! Although the tough moments are in hindsight the best bits! It is those moments that where you find out how you deal with adversity.

What was the contents and weight of your ruck sac?

I carried the Raidlight front and back packs.

Apart from the compulsory kit list and food I took:

- Cooking equipment:
       - Optimus Terra solo cook set (definitely recommend)

       - Esbit Titanium cooking stove (The Esbit fuel blocks have to bought from the Darbaroud website and picked up upon arrival at base camp, as airlines are funny now days with you carrying fuel blocks... I bought two boxes, but this was too much. Basically what we did in our tent was to buddy up the fires and just shared our fuel! Me and a guy called Andy would get the fire going and take it in turns to heat our water.

       - Esbit cooking surround to wrap around the fire as it can get windy and the Esbit fuel can
         get easily blown out; which can be annoying when you are tired and hungry!
       - Tesco Baby Spoon rather than expensive spork (I used the bottom of the water bottles as bowls,
         this means you don't have the worry of washing your own bowl and getting germs!)
- Sleeping:
       - Thermarest NEOAir sleeping mat ( I would definitely recommend as comfortable
         Although, mine did puncture after day 2 so slept rough for remaining days! Bad luck I guess.
       - Yeti vib sleeping bag - expensive but worth it. It gets mighty cold at night!!!!!!!

- Head torch: I used a PETZL Zipka plus 2, was a great torch, and worked really well! The red light function is great when using it in the bivvies as not to blind your mates! Although I have just bought an LED LENSER head torch and its much better!  That said I have not used it for any multi-day events, however I used it for the Lakeland50 this year and was great! It doesn't have the red lamp option...

- Walking Poles
- Knife: I took the credit card style knife/ scissors, but took the other parts out; so only had the knife and scissors. Not only does it save weight but it meant you only had to find one item.

- Small tooth brush and small tooth paste (down to personal preference but was great to clean teeth in the morning)

- spare running top for evening

- lounge wear type trousers for evening

- flip flops- although i lost mine on day 3 and had to blag a pair from the base camp lost property!!!!!!;)
- Antiseptic:  I took a 50ml can of Salvon Dry Antiseptic. The Docs will give you needles and Iodine to treat yourself when you get blister but only if your blisters are not too bad.

Another tip I found was pack kit within kit. During the day I put kit inside my cooking pot. Also, my Anti Venom pump came in a pouch so I stuffed loads of kit into that as well.

What did you wear?

- Skins running shorts (note to self! don't wear pants under these as it can cause the worst chaffing imaginable!!!!!!)
- Rail riders shirt ( would definitely recommend)
- Injinji cap
- injinji socks-inner and Wigwam Terrain Trax Pro Socks as an outer pair. The inner pair are like gloves. The idea is that the inners wick the sweat away from your feet. They are not cheap by any means but running socks are not, and I think its definitely worth spending the money as the feet take a pounding. I took 2 sets with the plan to change both halfway through. However in practise I couldn't put on my second inner socks as my feet had swollen so only wore the thicker outers for the second half of the race.
- Sandbaggers gaiters (would definitely recommend)
- I wore my normal running shoes, with the normal one size bigger (with Velcro stitched to the edges so the gaiters stuck to them)
- 2 buffs (one for neck and one for wrist to wipe sweat etc)
- Julbo sunglasses ( looked crap but definitely recommend as we had a sandstorm on the second day yet my and eyes were fine. Well worth the 80quid!)

Describe your nutrition plan

I'm 6ft 2" about 15 stone, so I am going to burn the calories, so I really couldn't skimp on the calories, although you do have to have a certain amount per day!  Most of my weight in my bag was food! The great thing is that as you go through the event your bag gets lighter and lighter, as you are eating the majority of the weight, such that it should be reasonably light for the 50 mile and marathon days. I ate and needed everything I took and I still lost a shed load of weight!

I unpacked all my freeze dried food into bags that you could then suck the air out and heat seal! this was a great way to save space in your bag. I then wrote on the bag what meal it was, what day and if it was for breakfast or evening meal! I might sound a lot of hassle but well worth doing...

Per day I had:

- Mountain House freeze dry food x3 (one for breakfast, one when I got into base camp and the other one in the eve; although later on in the week the evening meals were eaten one after the other!:) )

- Cliff bars x2
- Sport beans x2
- Peronin x1 ( powdered meal you mix with water, great on the go meal, taken at the mid-way aid station each day)
- Rego recovery x1 (taken as soon as I got into bivvie, plus laying down with feet on ruck sack- helps aid recovery)

For the long, 50 mile, day I doubled my cliff bars, sport beans and peronin.

Also, for the rest day I packed some treats! Obviously this is gonna be personal to you but I packed:

- Nescaffe sachets ( the individual ones white with sugar)

- Smash ( totally recommend)
- Beef jerky ( totally recommend)
- Super noodles!

These treats were totally worth the weight.  I didn't stop on the long day, so had a full rest day, which was great! I spent most of the days eating my treats and having a right laugh with the boys in the bivvie; although most of it is very dark humour, as with most multi-day endurance events. Also, on the rest day I had the obligatory appointment with the, aptly nicknamed, Doc Trotters to sort out an angry blister on my heal! Again its all part of the experience seeing the Docs!

What was the low point and highlight of your race?

My lowest point was the Marathon day; this was the stage after the long day and the rest day (if you finished the long stage in one day). I had kind of got into the mentality that once the long day was done you were home and dry! This is because drop out rate after the long day is really low as after the long day there are only two stages to finish; the Marathon day and a cheeky 10 miler. The day of the Marathon was fecking hot and the route had some tough climbs!  It was a probably made tougher by the fact I had mentally let my guard down! There were other little low moments, but you just crack on as you have got no choice! Losing my flip flops was pretty emotional! You'll find that silly things can annoy you... ;-)




My highlight was simply being at the MDS! I really mean this! For me it was truly a great experience! It was so nice to have no worries for over a week apart from keeping my legs moving, feeding myself and keeping care of my feet! No work, no phone, nothing! I really enjoyed that part of it and it's funny how you quickly adapt into a routine!

What item of your kit proved to be the most valuable?

Definitely the most valuable bit of kit was the packet of wet wipes I put into my bag at the last minute! I got very good at folding as soon as I realised I was running out. Also, pack some alcohol hand sanitiser as you don't want to get sick!

My gaitors were another bit of kit i thought worked well, my ipod was great for the low moments, put some tunes on and just get the legs going! Also I'm glad I took my small digital camera, definitely take time to take it all in and get some great photos!

What item do you wish you left at home?

The piece of kit for me I  wish I'd left at home were my poles! They were a total waste of time. I used them once and hated them. But... if you twist an ankle or your feet get shredded they could be useful...!!!

What training did you do: distance and acclimatisation?

I ran about 3 times a week, including hill sessions, speed work and running a few long miles with weight in my kit bag, i also did circuit sessions once a week. Alas, I didn't have the funds to go anywhere hot so I did all my training in Blighty!

The key races I did in preparation were:

- Poppyline 50 LDWA; and

- Pilgrims Challenge

The Poppyline was a 50 mile race and the Pilgrims Challenge was a two day event, 33 miles each day, on the North Downs Way with camping in a school hall after the first stage.

I would  recommend both events, especially The  Pilgrims Challenges as it is good to get used to running two big stages one after the other.

Any funny stories or anecdotes?

 

Loads of funny stuff happens, but its mainly "you've gotta be there" to find it funny. Some of the other stuff is quite dark humour and best relayed over a pint or two when you are next back in the UK.  My funniest sadomasochistic moment was the fact I got the worst chaffing and had to spend the rest of the day mainly on my knees opening my buttocks to ease the pain!!! :-) Ah, that reminds me I took two pots of Vaseline, the small tin types that people use for their lips.

It's important to keep your sense of humour during the race. Its a bloody stupid thing to be doing if you think about: trudging through the Sahara carrying your own kit!!! However, it's truly an amazing experience and I tried to always keep smiling, even through the tough moments, and remember how lucky I was to be having such an experience!

Our bivvie blew down on the sand storm day, which doesn't sound funny but it was. Every time we fixed it the thing just blew down again! that night I was really pleased I had a surround for my stove!

A lot of the strangest humour was around blisters. One guy in my bivvie got the worst blister on one of his testicles!!! I remember it got so bad that he had to put a blister plaster over it to ease the rubbing and everyone was crying with laughter at his pain when he had to pull the plaster off...

Anything else?

I found Dave Scott at Sandbaggers extremely helpful, with kit choices and nutritional advice. He also runs a seminar in Stevenage in the spring which I went to and found very informative. You can also get your medical/ECG done on the same day; which is handy.

Would you do the MDS again?

I would definitelyto do another multi-day ultra, but not the MDS, just because there are others out there to do.