1#9 Shane Ohly: the elite mountain runner
“I’ve always found peace and tranquility when I’m absolutely engaged with a consequential activity.”
Episode #9…
… welcomes a man who’s not only a living legend in the worlds of climbing and mountain running, but also the organisational driving force behind the Dragon’s Back Race, the Cape Wrath Ultra, Skyline Scotland, and the Great Lakeland 3Dday. That means that we could only be talking about one person: Shane Ohly.
Shane first entered the scene in his teens/20s as a sponsored climber found energetically attacking everything from Cornish crags to the Eiffel Tower, with a brutal 2003 “502 routes in 18hrs” epic thrown in for good measure. Since then he’s turned to running for his kicks and - amongst many other mind-boggling achievements - has finished first in the 53-year-old epic OMM Elite three times (!).
The real questions are: does he feel fear while free climbing? Would he get on with his “brash, careless” 18-year-old self? And does he ever just sit on the couch eating crisps…?
You can find out more about Shane via shaneohly.com and follow him on Twitter and Instagram. While you’re at it check out his company Ourea Events too.
[episode recorded on 28/04/21]
00:00 - Introduction
01:42 - Welcome, remembering Ben Winston
04:58 - Embarrassing Shane Ohly
06:34 - Climbing in the 90s… arrested on the Eiffel Tower, “I cottoned onto the fact that climbing buildings generated media interest”
12:46 - Free soloing, “I wouldn’t say I don’t have fear, because that would be misleading… but that fear is quite a remote thing”
16:07 - “If you stick most climbers on a small, 30cm wide ledge hundreds of metres above the ground, lost on a sea of rock, that’s going to be a scary experience. For me it’s just something to work out. And I enjoy it… all those background stresses and everyday thoughts that invade your mind just melt away. I’ve always found peace and tranquility when I’m absolutely engaged with a consequential activity.”
18:06 - “As the stress ramps up I have the opposite reaction to what most people would expect, and I feel a growing sense of calm as the situation becomes more serious.”
19:20 - 17-year-old Shane was “overconfident and brash and bit careless… and when I found rock climbing it just suited that risk-taking attitude that I had to everything I did… In hindsight I can see this wasn’t an entirely healthy process, because what I was being told I was good at was taking risks”
22:52 - Turning from climbing to running (“a moment of clarity”), “The thing I’d been missing most was that time in the mountains, running with fresh air on your face and wind and rain”
26:10 - “The climbing was driven by raw talent and enthusiasm, whereas the running has been hard-earned…10 years later, and that’s what it took me in terms of dedication and time, you go back and you win”
29:03 - Overcoming doubt, “… I’m absolutely certain that I won’t fall over. But then I’m absolutely certain that when I fall over - because inevitably you do - I will just roll and bounce onto my feet.”
36:09 - Reviving the “Dragon’s Back”
37:30 - “When you look at our current four events, it’s easy to forget that there have been more failures than successes. Organising events is pretty brutal… and you have to spend a lot of time and money before you get a single entry.”
41:20 - “The entrepreneurial element to my life has always been there… I would actually describe myself as unemployable. I have a natural reaction when somebody asks me to do something to not want to do it.”
44:50 - 502 routes in 18hrs… “I felt like I’d been battered with a baseball bat. I was very tired.”
47:35 - Greatest Mountain Memory… the third OMM Elite win at the 50th anniversary in 2017. “I worked hard for it, and it proves it’s not a fluke when you win it three times.”
49:00 - All the time, money freedom… Running the Great Himalayan Trail “spend as many weeks as it required to work your way through the mountains, breathing that thin but pure air.”
