It has felt like a very long winding road to get to the start line of my first ultra in 3 years. I will not detail the story here but if you are so inclined you can go back through my blog posts and see why I have been absent from racing for so long. I had intended to do a write up of all of my races coming back from surgery but have so far done absolutely zero, so a little bit of context might be useful. In the last 6 months I have completed 4 races ranging from 8-20 miles, all of which have gone well in the broader view of building back fitness and remembering how to race again and what it feels like. Coming into Snowdonia I knew I needed to be realistic with my goals and to focus on the long term plan of becoming an ultra mountain runner, with this being the end of the first cycle to get there. To this end my aim was to execute my race well, by that I mean pace sensibly, make good in race decisions and implement a nutrition plan which I adhered to.
And so there I was at around 8am waiting towards the front of the corral with 1200 others for our long planned 55km, 3500m day in the mountains of Eryi. I knew the race would have an unexpected heat factor when I was only wearing shorts and a t-shirt at 8am in a valley in North Wales. I did the first iteration of this event in 2018 when it was Ultra Trail Snowdonia 50 miles, some way it has come. That first year we started next to a hotel, a few hundred runners who knew of the event I would guess through the ‘scene’ as many of us would have followed race director Michael Jones’ running through his numerous success and Salomon sponsorship. This event is now apart of the UTMB world series and I believe now owned by them too, so rather then a few hundred people milling around next to a hotel and actually following RD and race owner Michael through the streets of Llanberis on his bicycle to show us the way, it was an amazing Welsh drumming band thousands of racers and spectators, set in a beautiful slate quarry with live event spec PA system and MC.
I jostled myself towards the front of the crowd, nestled behind Tom Evans and imagined tearing up the Llanberis path going toe to toe with some of the greatest mountain runners in the world. I am not completely deluded I know that isn’t my level, but I find this kind of positive imagery and self talk motivating. The reality was the gun blew and a group of around 20 galloped away, so I tucked in behind and concentrated on my feeling. Being honest with yourself can be a difficult trick to master, to hold the RPE (rate of perceived exertion) that you hope you can sustain for what would be a 7 hour race in my case is a constantly evolving self assessment. Pushing too hard so that you are moving at the speed you want to run or to hold a race position you want or even convincing yourself you are running hard enough, but you just don’t want to be in discomfort any more, are as easily done as operating at the correct effort level.
One mountain ticked off and the only section of undulating runnable terrain before we ascended Snowdon via the Watkins path. It was heating up and I spent a good chunk of time running with Ry Webb, which ended up being the most enjoyable part of the race. I like many others was struggling to make my water last between aid stations, the next one being after the descent of Snowdon, and I started to feel fatigued at the summit and Ry and a few others overtook me. This cycle repeated itself and for the next mountain Mynydd Mawr I ascended alone, really struggling and trying to not grind to a halt. I was caught by two more runners on the descent and tried and failed to stay with them but kept them insight. A refill at the aid station and a positive lift seeing my partner and friend gave me the impetus to attack the final climb of Moel Eilio where I took back the places I lost on Mynydd Mawr. I was very aware that the descents were agony so I needed to put everything into the ascent. As predicted I descended like a baby Giraffe and felt a toe nail tear off a mile from the finish. I was very thankful to see the slate mine and hear the MC announcing the finishers. I crossed the line in 15th out of around 1000 runners, it was my first ultra in 4 years after my back injury and subsequent surgery. Although I wanted to run the route quicker I was happy to finish 15th in a UTMB world series race at the start of my journey back to mountain ultra running.
moorendurance.com 