Mission247 Ultra Endurance Event - A Personal Account

It’s been three days since I completed the prestigious “Mission247” annual ultra endurance event, hosted by the famous clothing brand, Represent.

For some immediate context, here’s the format:

12 hours I 5KM trail run every hour I Remaining time spent accumulating as many meters on the ski erg as possible in a team of 5.

Total distance if you complete the event: 61KM (a marathon + almost 20KM…) and over 2,000 meters of elevation (double the height of Scafell Pike).

Read on to find out how I found it.

The encouraging sign which greeted us upon our arrival

Going into this event, I had been mentally preparing myself to face the hardest physical and mental challenge of my life. I had never run an ultra marathon before, and didn’t even want to think about the impact that the added ski erg meters in between would have on myself and the team.

As you can imagine, it gave me a real boost when I walked into the arena at 5.30AM and saw the “welcome to hell” sign!

Part 1 - the first 4 rounds

I applied the same mental strategy to this event as I do with marathons. In my head, I broke the 12 hour shift into 3 “manageable” blocks.

Block 1, the first 4 hours, would be the warm up, the acclimatisation, the settling in phase, the setting of the metronome. I knew that it would be all adrenaline and that first 20KM would probably feel pretty easy.

And it did. I breezed through the first 4 hours and so did the team. We were all clocking in decent times and were about half way up the leader board out of 40 teams.

But the warning signs were already there of how quickly things can turn in this savage event… On only the second run of the day, I saw someone trip as they were running down the hill, and as they fell, their knee cap landed directly on a sharp rock. Needless to say, it was messy, and that was the end of his race.

“I must be careful” - I thought to myself.

Quitting isn’t an option when you’re representing Kaizen

Part 2 - the middle 4 hours

I had intentionally laid off the caffeine earlier on in the day so I could utilise it’s magical powers to give me the boost I knew I would need going into the grittier middle rounds.

This caffeine hit was even more welcome as it was time for me to pick up the pace on the runs. After sitting a minute behind my team mate, Ben, for the first 4 runs, we decided I would take the lead for rep 5 and 6 to allow him to recover.

This tactic worked: I completed lap 5 in 24:30 at an average speed of 5:02/KM and lap 6 in just over 25 minutes, taking total personal distance for the day to over 30KM. This gave Ben, our resident Duracell battery, the chance to recover ahead of the later rounds.

We were now at the half way point of the event. It was actually unbelievable that we were only half way in. Everyone was tired, sore, and some were injured. By this point, we had lost a team member on the runs due to severe cramp, so were competing with a man down on the trails, and things were getting gritty.

As the 4 of our remaining athletes pulled up to the start line ahead of lap 7, I called a quick team huddle and said something along these lines: “We didn’t sign up for the first 6 laps. We signed up for the last 6 laps. This is what we came for. This is where we will learn what we’re really made of”. Okay, maybe it didn’t quite come out like that, but you get the idea.

This picture paints a thousand words. Pain is etched on my face as I walked up the dreaded hill again.

When I set off for lap 7, my right knee immediately started to hurt. A pain I recognised - it was my IT Band and it was completely wrecked.

On a normal run, I would have immediately stopped and rested to ensure the injury didn’t escalate, but as there was only 30KM to go, I thought I would get on with it and complete the event.

Quitting wasn’t an option.

I finished loop 7 and immediately nailed 2 co-codamol painkillers (cheers dad). This, combined with a healthy serving of Red Bull, powered me through the 8th lap and I actually felt okay on that lap. This was the last time I would feel “okay” for the remainder of the event.

From here onwards, it was nothing but pain.

Me and Ben embracing. The bonds forged at an event like this are deep. You learn a lot about each other and also what you are personally capable of. Similar to the bonds forged when you live through a Camp Kaizen training camp with your camp mates.

Part 3 - the final 4 laps - the end game.

You would normally associate “4 more laps” with laps around a track or even 4KM laps on, say, a park run.

But 4 laps at this event meant 20 more gruelling kilometres, with over 700 meters of elevation and about 15KM to ski on the ski erg. It really is a different beast.

These laps were simply about survival. I’m not exaggerating when I say that, due to the injury on my right knee, I lost the mechanical ability to lift up my right leg from the knee joint, so had to develop a new running technique which meant twisting my right hip to get my leg off the ground. I also had to really stimulate my brain to send the necessary neuron signals to the right leg to get it up for each step. It was quite a fun challenge in a weird way. As I was cycling pain killers at this point, the pain fluctuated between dull and severe, which added to the roller coaster of the final 4 hours.

The first 3 hours of the final block of runs were a bit of a blur, but I never showed outward weakness to my team or our supporters. As our team leader, I felt that if I showed weakness or any negativity, it would be detrimental to the morale of the team.

Keep on smiling and keep on bringing the energy George. Come on man.

The final lap was a grizzly affair. I got around the hellish course in just under 37 minutes and lashed that ski erg with the team until the bitter end.

On my final rep on the ski erg I suddenly felt the urge to start crying. Weird. I wonder why.

Of course, I resisted this urge as that wouldn’t have been cool!

The final hooter sounded at 7PM and that signalled the end of the Mission247 ultra endurance event. The team embraced one another. It was a beautiful moment which I certainly won’t forget

All 5 of us made it through. We didn’t win, but we all gave it our absolute best shot, and even finishing that thing puts you in the top 0.001% of athletes in the UK.

Personally, I completed every damn millimetre of the course, as did my loyal warrior brother, Patrick, and of course the legend Ben Jones. The amazing Grace came very close if it wasn’t for her recently operated knee playing up towards the end, and Timms, who had about 1 week to prepare, battled through despite terrible cramps in both legs. An amazing team effort.

The Camp Kaizen team at the end of the day. We are building something very special here.

Closing thoughts

I could go on about “what I learnt about myself” through this event.

But the truth is, I didn’t learn anything. I knew going into it that quitting wasn’t an option. It would have crawled around the course for 12 hours if I had to. As a representative of Camp Kaizen and the first wave of Kaizen Athletes, I knew I needed to set an unshakable standard for the next wave to follow.

That leads me nicely onto my final point…

We want Camp Kaizen to be recognised as a training camp for “high performers and those who aspire to be”. If you are willing to push yourself and get stuck in, then our doors are open to you.

Our doors are also open to those who want to be the best of the best, and to perform on the most elite physical stages in the country.

And do it whilst representing Camp Kaizen - a real training camp buried deep in the Lake District National Park, where you leave a better version of yourself…

To become a part of the team, all you need to do it attend a training camp or the Mountain Race and apply via this link.

So, who is next?

George C

Founder - Camp Kaizen