Confessions of an accidental ultra runner

I enter the Greek city of Sparta at lunchtime on Saturday. I’ve been running continuously since dawn on Friday. I say running, it’s now more of a drunken stagger. I’ve come 152 miles and climbed a 4,000ft mountain since leaving Athens, to the sound of primal roars from fellow competitors as the sun rose over the Acropolis. In almost 30 hours, I’ve cried, hallucinated and fallen asleep on my feet – only to wake still running, worryingly, down a busy road.

My legs have become concrete, unable to bend at the knee. There’s only a mile and a half left to hobble, and every step is pure agony. Life simply doesn’t get any better than this.

What is it about endurance running that draws an increasingly large number of apparently sane people to unspeakably difficult races like the Spartathlon? Do we all have a screw loose? And what brought me to this dusty Greek roadside anyway?

A decade ago, the very idea of “going for a run” was laughable as I sat in the pub eating crisps and nipping outside for the occasional cigarette. My story is easy to summarise. Bloke hits his 30s, notices the first signs of a spare tyre flopping over his belt, starts running to get rid of it and falls head over heels in love with the sport. I built it up quickly, battling through injuries and correcting a truly terrible gait in time for my first race, the 2010 Great North Run. 

I soon progressed to a full marathon. As I crossed the finishing line in Barcelona, I decided to find out how much faster I could go if I trained properly. Thus begun several happy years punctuated by frequent, single-night mini-breaks with my cousin, another Vassos, to run 26.2 miles in Ljubljana, Copenhagen, Bergen and other weird and wonderful places. We’d both developed an obsession with trying to break the magical three-hour barrier, and had lots of fun along the way. 

Our trademark was the marathon-eve dinner. Accepted wisdom states you should never eat anything unusual the night before a big race, just in case it disagrees with you. We ignored that advice, beginning in Barcelona with strange Catalan concoctions involving giant onions waist-deep in oil, sausages the size of your arm and snails washed down with a pint of Spanish lager.

We both ran well the following day, and a tradition was born. Wherever we went we’d sample the local cuisine, the more outlandish the better, the night before the race. Cousin Vassos graduated from 3:07 (Milton Keynes) to 2:58 (Eindhoven) with barely a hiccup, and promptly lost motivation to keep racing. However, for ages I just couldn’t persuade my legs to run 26.2 miles any quicker than 3:02:11. 

It was the Lake District that sorted me out. I ran a half-marathon in Keswick, my first time in the fells. Gorgeous. I remember cresting a peak and suddenly it was as if my eyes had been freshly opened. You’re on top of England, drinking in the beauty and wilderness. Then you start descending, crazy-quickly down the steep, rough slopes, and that sensation is intensified. You feel like you’re completely at one with your surroundings and lose any sense of space and time.

Suddenly, my marathon time seemed far less important. At which point, naturally, I did finally break three hours. But having discovered trail running, proper off-road stuff, often with no paths or tracks, longer races seemed the natural next step.

An “ultra” is any run longer than 26.2 miles and in the past five years the numbers participating have rocketed. Whereas there used to be a few dozen races to choose from every year, now there are several dozen every weekend. Some races have waiting lists just to volunteer, and that’s just in the UK.

But I don’t much like the term ultra. Makes it seem like only ultra-trained, ultra-strong, ultra-fit athletes need apply. And, actually, the exact opposite is true. There are runners of all shapes and sizes on the start line, and they’ll all be pleased to see you. 

When I completed my first 100-mile race in 2016, I felt that same elation crossing the finish line as when each of our three amazing children came into the world. 

Back in Sparta, it’s the local kids who come through for me. The Spartathlon is a big deal in Greece. Everywhere along the route people turn out to encourage and applaud – through cities, villages and olive groves, over the mountain in the dead of night; Greeks feel you’re honouring their culture simply by taking part. We’re re-creating one of the most important runs in history, when the messenger Pheidippides was sent to seek Spartan help in the battle of Marathon.

Every year around 400 seasoned endurance runners take part, and the race is so punishing that only a third reach the finishing line. Which is a statue: the giant bronze monument to the warrior King Leonidas. You touch – or, more charmingly, kiss – his foot to finish.

As I enter the outskirts of Sparta a volunteer tells me there’s a mile and a half to go. He’s trying to be helpful, but I’m in such a state, having run 50 miles further than ever before, that the news nearly breaks me.

Then the local kids appear out of nowhere, some on foot, others on bikes. A boy of about nine holds my hand and leads the way.

“Why are you going so… slowly?” he demands to know.

“Ha! I’ve just run from Athens and it’s honestly not nearby.”

“Yeah, but still…”

Every time we pass a building, people on balconies stand to applaud. Soon we’re into the centre of the town where cheering pedestrians line the streets. As I stagger past the roadside tavernas, the diners stand up and clap. This is not just another race.

With every footstep towards the statue, I feel increasingly anchored to a glorious past. I climb the steps. Raise my arms. Kiss the foot. It’s done. And it’s the best feeling ever.

Running Up That Hill by Vassos Alexander (Bloomsbury, £12.99) is available for £10.99 plus p&p; see books.telegraph.co.uk