Peter Vickers: The ultra runner who conquered Covid
How one man stared death in the face - and then ran a 35-mile ultra marathon
“I thought if I go to sleep, I’m not going to wake up. That’s going to be the end.”
It’s January 2022 and Pete Vickers is scared. Like so many people across the world, he has contracted Covid-19 and the deadly virus is playing havoc with his lungs.
“They say your life flashes before you,” he said. “And that’s true. Every time I shut my eyes, I was getting a vision of when I used to go fishing with my dad when I was five- or six-years-old.”
Thankfully, Pete - approaching 60 at the time - pulled through, but it took him 10 weeks before he could return to one of the loves of his life: running.
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“It had damaged my lungs and I was suffering,” he told the Running Tales Podcast. “I had a choice. It was either stop running or try and get myself back into some sort of condition.”
Just over a year later he was standing at the start line of one of the more challenging ultras in the country, the 35-mile Shires and Spires in Naseby.
A UTMB (Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc) qualifier with more than 2,000 metres of elevation across the rolling hills and trails of Northamptonshire, it is not an event for the faint-hearted.
Or the weak-lunged. But Pete was determined.
The birthday parkrunner who became addicted:
Although Pete’s running journey didn’t start with parkrun - he had previously completed what he calls a “scramble” up Mount Snowdon to raise money for charity - it was taking part in the weekly 5k event which sparked his current obsession.
He has now completed 158 parkruns, and regularly paces 35 minutes to encourage runners who don’t normally benefit from those pacemakers helping the 20 to 30-minute group. But back in April 2017 it was a mystery to him why a large group of runners were taking to Northampton’s Racecourse every Saturday morning.
After speaking to event volunteers, Pete decided to run parkrun to celebrate his 55th birthday.
Like so many people up and down the country - and these days the world - he quickly became hooked, meeting “brilliant friends” and enjoying a community spirit that meant “people are always supporting you, nobody puts you down”.
By the end of 2017, he had graduated on to 10km races and the following year he decided to tackle the half-marathon distance - something he did successfully at the Northampton Half.
It was then things really started moving.
When the wife of one of his best friends was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, Pete wanted to do something to help. He contacted the Cystic Fibrosis Trust with the idea of running “a few half-marathons” to raise money for them.
“I was planning on doing sort of three or four throughout the year,” he said. “But when I sat down and looked at all the ones I wanted to do I was up to about 25 or 26.
“I thought I couldn’t really do that, and I managed to narrow it down to 12. Some of them were a bit close together so in the end I did ten half-marathons in a year.”
‘Running for a cause gives you mental strength’:
Charity is something Pete has embedded into his running over the years, with causes including Alzheimer's disease, asthma, brain tumour research and breast cancer benefitting from his fundraising.
Currently he is taking on three more half-marathons to raise money for Brain Tumour Research in honour of a work colleague who has a tumour. Having already ticked off events in Northampton and Leicester, he will complete the challenge in Milton Keynes this December.
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“She is hopefully going to be there at the finish to make it extra special,” he said.
“Running for a cause gives you the mental strength to grit your teeth when you feel like, ‘why am I doing this?’
“You think, I know why. I'm doing this to benefit the charity. That gives me a pick me up and away we go to the finish.”
In between his half-marathon challenges, Pete has managed to fit in three marathons, including running the “absolutely amazing” London Marathon twice.
His first marathon, though, was at Peterborough where he finished in five hours, 29 minutes and 56 seconds - a whole four seconds inside his five-and-a-half-hour goal.
Shires, Spires… and Covid:
With the marathons behind him, Pete was ready for a new challenge. It was then he spotted the “nice and hilly” Shire and Spires Ultra.
With a cut-off time of nine hours, he was confident he could make it round - even though he was still struggling at times with his breathing as a result of his brush with Covid.
Pete was finding that when he began to struggle to get enough air into his lungs, his heart rate was beginning to spike due to the extra effort.
It is an issue that has dogged him throughout the second half of 2023, as he has caught Covid twice more: “I just keep gritting my teeth and putting one foot in front of the other. As long as I'm breathing, I will keep going.”
Back in May as he prepared for his first ultra, Pete had been able to control his breathing on training runs. But as he entered the final miles of the Shires and Spires it began to suffer, and his heart was pounding.
Reduced to walking pace and with the cut-off time approaching, it looked like Pete might not make it to the finish line. When he did, in around eight hours 48 minutes and with his somewhat nervous wife Theresa waiting, it was an emotional end to just over a year of conquering Covid.
“I was happy to have achieved it,” he told Running Tales in his typically understated manner. “I'm a stubborn old bugger. I don't let things beat me. I will find a way.
“It's like with my lungs and my breathing at the minute. I will find a way around it and I will keep going. I just don't like losing. Full stop.”