Cow Shed Backyard Ultra 2022

Last weekend, we travelled to Wheelbirks Farm in the Northumberland countryside so I could run my first ever Backyard Ultra. Since the first “Big’s Backyard Ultra“, hosted by the legendary Lazarus Lake in his literal backyard in Bell Buckle, Tennessee in 2011, hundreds of similar events have spawned worldwide, each of which gives entrants the change to qualify for the individual or national championships. If you’ve never heard of it, the format of the race is very simple. Taking place on a 4-and-one-sixth mile loop, runners must complete each loop and be ready to start the next before the hour is up. This repeats unless all but one runners have quit or timed out – leaving the last man (or woman) standing to complete one final victory loop, with all the others recording a DNF (Did Not Finish). The world record, set by Harvey Lewis at Big’s in 2021 currently stands at 85 yards – that’s 354 miles in a little over 3.5 days! The backyard is designed that it’s not too hard to complete a single loop, but gradually fatigue and tiredness creep up on you, making it truly possible to find your own limit. Sounds like my idea of fun 🙃

Preparation

The race was due to start at noon on Saturday, but with registration and the camping field open from Friday afternoon we made sure to arrive early enough to grab a prime site, right next to the start/finish corral. Saving a few metres at the end of each lap could add up to quite a lot and make a difference as the race went on – marginal gains! Julie and Rhona were to be crewing for me (the rest of the kids were left with their grandparents for the weekend), and between us we quickly got our tent up. We brought our family 6-sleeper tent, which was more space than we’d need for sleeping but had plenty room to move our aid station indoors if needed. As the afternoon went on the field filled up with at least 50 or so other runners with tents and camper vans. At registration, I had a chance to chat to the organisers from Greener Miles Running who said that in addition to the nearly 100 solo entrants, there would be another 40 runners making up the Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales teams as the race was part of the Four Nations Trophy series. So it would be a busy start, and we could expect a long race!

Camp / aid station set up in prime position, near the starting corral
Registered and collected my number
Camp site filling up on Friday evening

After a hearty pasta dinner we settled down for an early night in the tent and slept well until morning. Good thing, as we were not expecting to be getting much sleep on Saturday night! The day dawned dry, hazy and cold – but the forecast was set fair all weekend, with a little bit of cloud. After several days of dry weather, the conditions looked pretty benign. By mid-morning, the campsite had filled up even more, plus there were runners who were planning only for a few loops. There was a real buzz about the place, and it was nice to meet to some of the Team Scotland runners – I’m sure we’ll cross paths again in future. Each entrant had been given a £10 voucher for the Wheelbirks Ice Cream Parlour so Julie and Rhona set off to investigate that, leaving me to have an early lunch and get changed ready for the race. After a few last minute photos, all the runners were gathered in the starting corral for a short race briefing, followed by the 3-minute, 2-minute and 1-minute whistle blasts, a 10 second countdown to the hour, and we were off!

Wide awake on race morning!
The sun started to burn through the mist by mid morning
Fuelling up, an hour before the start
Showing off our matching Miles Together gear!
Ready to get started

The course

The exact course was a bit of a mystery before the race. It’s on private, working farm land so we were asked not to recce it, and there were several changes to the previous year’s route as well as a different start/finish location. From the start line, we climbed gradually through a few grassy fields before crossing the farm access road and heading straight up a half mile climb on a gravel track. Turning sharply back at the top, a short descent through another field made up the end of the first mile. Rejoining a track, we continued back down towards the farm buildings before turning right and following a grassy track along hedge line out towards the boundary of the farm and a nearby forestry plantation. Zig-zagging through a clear-felled area with good grassy and heathery ground underfoot, we entered the forest itself, with dry, rooty and pine cone strewn floor to reach the end of the second mile. We came briefly out of the forest again before a short, wooded, plunging descent down to the Stocksfield Burn. The path here was very muddy in parts, but great fun to run down and actually quite easy on the legs. Crossing the burn on a narrow plank bridge led to a short but steep ascent on a very boggy and slippery path, which only got worse as hundreds of runners slithered up it lap after lap. A nice bit of single track through open woodland led out onto more fields, and a gradual descent to end the of the third mile. The fourth mile started with a large loop around the perimeter of a field, before another short descent on hard packed dry ground through trees to a tarmac road. Re-crossing the now larger burn on a stone bridge, we made a short, sharp climb on the road before heading back into farmland. Following yet another wide track around the edge of a field, we popped out at another plank bridge over a ditch. This led directly back into the lower corner of the camping field, and a short rise over the grassy ground back up to the start/finish line. With over 400 ft of elevation gain and loss on each lap, and boggy and rough underfoot in places this was definitely not an easy course! Nevertheless it was definitely achievable in well under an hour.

Loop by loop

Note that these recollections might not be 100% accurate! As you’ll imagine, it’s hard to tell one loop apart from another…

Loop 1 (47:19) The first loop was really all about learning the course. Feeling fresh, I was able to walk everything that was even slightly uphill, gentle runs on the downhills and still finish well under my planned pace of 12 minute per mile (which works out to a 50 minute loop). It was still overcast, with a little bit of a breeze and I started with a thin long-sleeved base layer. By the end of the loop the sun had come out and I was heating up! Off with the base layer, on with the sun cream and plenty of time to rest up before starting the next lap. One runner came in near the end of the hour, but was unable or unwilling to complete the next.

The corral filling up with 115 runners
Waiting for the 12 noon bell
And they’re off!

Loop 2 (47:25) The sun was fully out now, but there was a cool breeze on the higher parts of the course. My legs were still feeling strong, and I found I was able to start slowly, but pass a lot of people on the walk up the first big hill. Overall I was probably still going a bit too fast, but still feeling good!

Loop 3 (48:21) Managed to get the initial adrenaline rush out of my system and slowed down a little bit!

Loop 4 (47:52) Sweating bucketloads in the heat of the afternoon, but drinking plenty and eating a variety of food – mainly salty stuff like crisps, some dried fruit and nuts, and my all-time favourite – watermelon!

Loop 5 (47:35) One runner said that the furthest she had ever run before was a half marathon, but completed 4 loops (16.67 miles) and headed out for the fifth. Sadly, she wasn’t able to finish in the hour.

Loop 6 (47:48) 25 miles completed! It was dinner time in camp, and Julie had prepared a hot dog and roll for me, which I wolfed down.

Loop 7 (48:13) As we set off, the news went round that last year’s winner had dropped out with an injury! This loop passed the marathon mark so we were now officially running an ultra. It seems this was enough for many as this was the last completed loop for 13 runners.

Loop 8 (48:40) Still in short sleeves, but off with the sun hat and on with the buff and head torch. It was still light at the start of the loop, but dark enough to need the torch in the forest sections. While I was out, Julie and Rhona moved our aid station inside the tent, so I could sit down and eat in the warm.

Loop 9 (48:33) The first proper night loop. Although it was still quite mild, I switched into a thermal base layer. I was still sweating a lot so I knew I could easily get cold. A full moon rose in the East, glowing through the clouds that had rolled in.

Loop 10 (49:43) As night fell, I was hitting a bit of a low. I had 40+ miles in my legs and my glutes in particular were starting to feel it. Nothing else for it, I just kept plodding on – I wasn’t actually much slower than the previous lap anyway.

Loop 11 (48:32) The temperature was dropping a bit, and the breeze which had been nice during the day was still blowing, making it a bit chilly along the exposed second mile from the top of the first hill to the forest. I grabbed an extra buff to wear round my neck, which worked well.

Loop 12 (50:13) 50 miles in the bag, and again this was the point for many runners to call it quits, with 19 pulling out or failing to complete the next loop. This loop ended up being the my slowest so far (although only by a minute or so), so I gave myself a bit of a talking to when I got back to camp and resolved to work harder at the next loop.

Loop 13 (47:17) With some renewed effort, I put in a much faster loop – in fact faster than I’d done at any point in the race so far! So the legs were doing fine, I just needed to keep going…

Loop 14 (47:34) It was now 2am and the mid-way point of the night. Julie was having a hard time with repeatedly having her sleep interrupted by me turning up at the end of the loop. She was still making sure I was eating, and otherwise OK, but when the first whistle went and I got up to return to the corral, she managed to jam the zip of the tent and had forgotten to refill my hand-held bottle! In the end, both were solved in well under a minute with plenty of time to get into the corral.

Loop 15 (48:00) Completing this loop would mark the 100k distance, but it didn’t start well! On my way to the corral my stomach was feeling decidedly dodgy, and on cue I started throwing up 30 seconds before the bell. I couldn’t risk leaving the corral, so just hung my head over the edge and let fly! When the loop started I was still coughing up for the first minute or so, but after that I was OK again. The only good thing about being sick on an ultra is that you always feel much better straight after. It wasn’t ideal that I had another 4 miles to go before I could start replenishing the lost calories though. The rest of the loop passed without incident and I refuelled again back in the tent.

Loop 16 (47:56) At the end of this loop, I had my only proper sleep of the race. It only lasted a few minutes but I was sound asleep when the whistles blew. Julie woke me up and apparently I just stared straight through her, looking completely disoriented!

Loop 17 (48:35) The moon was now starting to dip towards the horizon, and the sky was beginning to light slightly, even though it was only 5am. After 8 solid night loops, dawn was within touching distance.

Loop 18 (47:39) It was starting to get properly light now and by the end of the loop I was able to ditch the head torch entirely. As the dawn broke, my spirits lifted and my legs came back to life – these next few loops around dawn were the ones I enjoyed most out of the whole race. At the end of this loop, Julie had cooked a bacon roll – but one nibble and I knew I couldn’t stomach it. More for Rhona!

Loop 19 (46:48) The first fully light loop of the morning – I had survived the night! Despite my stomach not being entirely settled, I ran my fastest loop of the race. When I finished the loop I had plenty of time to switch into day mode. Toilet stop, teeth brushed, off with the thermal top and buff, and on with sun cream and hat. The sun was coming up, and the forecast was for another hot day.

Loop 20 (47:11) There’s nothing quite like running in the morning after going through a whole night. This is the third time I’ve done it in a race, and it’s always a great feeling! I wasn’t taking in much food at this point – just a gel and picking at a few things in between laps – but had plenty of energy and was still keeping up a good pace.

Loop 21 (47:48) The field had thinned out by now, with only 14 runners left by the end of this loop. Those of us that remained were focussed on the next three loops that would take us up to the 100 mile marker.

Loop 22 (47:35) I was really not feeling like eating by this point. I’d been taking a gel each lap, plus whatever else I felt I could manage, as well as sipping on coke. Julie made a great discovery – there were Chia Charge bars being given away – which were 150 calories each, and seemed to be acceptable to my stomach.

Loop 23 (48:50) As the day really started to heat up, I started to slow again. More coke and chia bars kept me going. Sadly, a Team Scotland runner – one of the only two remaining ladies – couldn’t complete this lap and finished 8 miles short of the 100. The winner of Last Lady Standing was decided (although she was still going strong).

Loop 24 (49:31) The hundred mile loop was a strange one. I knew I was going to complete it, but I was definitely starting to struggle. Although I did make it in under 50 minutes, there were a lot of negative thoughts starting to creep in. One of the runners was looking very strong – sprinting ahead at the start of every lap, and looking like a shoe-in for the win. My right quad in particular was starting to hurt quite a bit on the descents. Not enough to stop me actually moving, but enough to be a constant niggle, and (since I’d effectively ruled myself out of the win) make me doubt the wisdom of carrying on.

Setting off on the first morning loop
Finishing a loop and feeling OK
Loop 22 – the hundred is getting close
100 miles completed 🎉

Loop 25 (50:15) 6 runners quit after completing the 100 mile distance, leaving 7 of us in the starting corral to start the second day of racing. I was still moving OK, but starting to move with less speed and purpose, and in a really bad place mentally.

Loop 26 (52:24) 5 of us gathered in the corral to start this loop, but one stopped as soon as the bell rang to set us off, leaving only 4 remaining runners. Getting off the start line I was really stiff and sore, although I was able to break into a bit of a shuffle and get myself round the loop. By the time I finished, I was mentally checked out and ready to quit. Julie had other ideas, however! She pointed out I still had over 7 minutes spare – I should just keep pushing and see if I could turn it around. Who was I to argue? I made my way back to the corral to start loop 27.

Loop 27 (56:02) Julie could see I was really suffering as we set off, and was feeling pretty bad for sending me back out – but I appreciate it, and would have done the same had it been the other way round! I didn’t want to be out on this loop, and I knew it was my last. It was a strange making my way round the familiar loop, passing each landmark for what I knew was going to be the last time. On every other lap, I had walked all the way up the finish field, but this time I did my best to manage a bit of a jog. Crossing the line, I had an emotional hug with Julie and collapsed in the chair. Even now, she still had a gel ready and opened, and a bottle of Irn-Bru, but I was done!

As the whistles blew to count down to the start of loop 28, I did at least make it back up to the corral, but with no intention of running the loop. When the bell rang to start the lap, I clapped the last three runners off and dropped out of the race.

Done… and done in!
Back in the corral for loop 28, but going no further
Feet in pretty good condition
The final three, about to set off on loop 29
A memento of my failure to finish!

After lying on my back with my legs up for a while, we decided it was better to take down our tent and head home – the race might well go on for several hours (or even days), and apart from the remaining runners/crews, the Four Nations marquee, and the registration tent, everyone else had already gone. Plus we had vouchers for the ice cream parlour and it closed in an hour! Julie and Rhona did most of the hard work getting packed away, while I hobbled around and recieved my DNF memento. Before long, we were ready to go for a swift ice cream and head home.

I was keeping an eye on updates on the event Facebook page to see how the race panned out. The biggest surprise was Robert, who had looked so strong throughout, dropped after completing the 29th loop! The last two runners, Paul and Sarah, carried on until dusk, when Paul dropped after the 32nd loop, leaving Sarah to complete her 33rd and final loop for a well deserved win 👏👏👏

Reflections

Looking back on the race a week later (still with sore legs!) I have mixed feelings. In one sense I’m happy to have placed as high as 4th (even if it still counts as a DNF), and while I maybe didn’t give quite my 100% on the day, I don’t think I could have gone on from how I was feeling on lap 27 to complete another 6 of more hours of racing. However, overall there definitely was room for improvement! Some of the things that went well:

  • My crew were brilliant throughout. They had everything ready for me, when I needed it (even in the middle of the night), knew when to give me space, and pushed me that little bit harder than I would have pushed myself right at the very end. Thanks Julie and Rhona 😍
  • Up until the last few laps, I managed to maintain a consistent pace of around 47-49 minutes per loop, despite the crowds for the first few laps, changing temperature and ground conditions.
  • Fuelling and hydration. I do seem to get a dodgy stomach when it’s hot, but with the variety of food I had available, I was able to keep to my plan of around 200 calories and 250 ml of electrolyte drink per lap. I was never hungry, low on energy or cramping up.
  • Shoe choice. After having major foot issues on the Lady Anne’s Way, I bought a pair of Salomon Sense Ride 3 GTX and had run about 50 miles in them before the backyard to wear them in. I used to run in Gore-Tex shoes a few years ago, and while they’re no use if it’s really wet (like very heavy rain, river crossings, marshy ground) as water will get in one way or another, they are great when there is a little bit of damp, like the few squishy patches and lots of wet dewy grass overnight. My feet stayed dry and had no major blistering, even though I managed to wear through a brand new pair of socks at the heel!
  • Race prep. With the Friday off work, we were able to get our tent pitched early, no stress, a solid night’s sleep and plenty of time to fuel up in the morning. As a result I think I was in pretty much top form for the race and had no issues staying awake through the night.
  • My watch. I recently reviewed the Garmin Fēnix 6, and although this time I did charge it a little bit after loops 22 and 23 – there was enough battery left to easily reach 26 or 27 hours. The better battery life was probably due to not using navigation mode, and having less hours of night (so less use of the backlight). The “Ultra Run” mode was also great as I was able to use the split button at the end of each loop to start a rest period and the split again to start the next loop. With pace and elapsed time displayed each mile (re-starting at each loop), it was easy to know how I was pacing myself throughout the loop.

Some points for improvement:

  • Choice of pace. In hindsight, I think aiming for 12 minutes per mile (50 mins per loop) was a bit too fast, plus I was actually slightly faster than that overall anyway. Having around 12 minutes rest each loop was more than I really needed. Although I sat with my eyes shut for 5 mins quite a few times, there was only once that I actually slept, and even then only for a couple of minutes. I ended up getting quite stiff and cold by the time I had to return to the corral to start each loop. I think it would be better to aim for something like 53 or 54 minutes per loop, and only putting in a faster loop if I needed the time for a loo break or a sleep.
  • Being more adaptable. For most of the first day, I was hitting pretty close to 12 minutes for the first mile, but as night fell and my walking pace started to slow I was getting closer to or over 13 minutes. My response was to speed up on miles 2 and 4 (which have the most downhill) to make up time and hit my goal pace. In fact, as I just mentioned I had plenty of time to spare so it would have been better to be more relaxed about the pace, let my lap time slip slightly but conserve energy by walking more rather than running needlessly to make up time. I believe it’s also quite normal to slow a bit at night anyway – so not something to be overly concerned about!
  • Goal setting & motivation. Coming into the race, in my head unless I picked up a major injury, my minimal goal was to get to the 100 mile mark, something I’ve done before (albiet not with this much elevation). Apart from that my next goals were to get to 150 miles – further than I’ve ever gone before (not to mention further than Julie will go when she does the KACR 145 in July 😳), and then finally I had hoped I might be able to challenge for the win. I’d already found the going much harder than I had expected quite early in the race, and after passing the 100 mile mark, I was thinking about what I should be aiming for next. I definitely wanted to do a few more loops, just to see how things went, but 150 miles seemed a long way off – another 12 hours of running, and the other 3 remaining runners looked much stronger so I didn’t believe I had a real chance of winning. Firstly, the strongest-looking runner dropped only 2 loops after me – so I should learn not to care about what everyone else is doing. Secondly, I need to find goals that are more achievable, or bite-sized. I realised afterwards that my longest ever running duration was 27 hours and 12 minutes, so doing the 28th loop would have beat that. Then I would have only been 3 more loops to beat my longest ever distance… and then the 150 mile might have been within reach after all. Ultimately, it’s about getting yourself in the zone to keep pushing out one more loop… and staying there!

Overall, I had a great time at the Cow Shed – thanks to all of the other runners and supporters, the marshals, organisers and of course my own crew for their part in that 👏👏👏 As it was my first time in a backyard, it’s definitely given me an itch to scratch. Unfortunately I can’t make it to either the Welsh or Scottish legs of the Four Nations Backyard Trophy – but there’s always next year, plus a couple of other possible events I have an eye on! If you’ve never tried a Backyard Ultra before, I totally recommend it, no matter how far you think you can go.

Dropping in to Edinburgh

Last weekend I travelled down to Edinburgh to take part in “The Drop“. If you haven’t come across it before, the concept is simple but makes for an interesting event. Competitors are blindfolded, bussed out to an unknown location a set distance from the finish location and race to make their way back – but no maps, GPS, or any other navigational aids are allowed. They have regular events all round the country and I’d run in one before, the 30 mile 2019 “Christmas Special” event in Huddersfield (which I won – although there were only 5 competitors)!

For the Edinburgh event, the finish location was at Pedal House – a cycle/row fitness club near the Edinburgh International Conference Centre in the West End. 10 and 15 mile distances were on offer, and I had opted for the 15 miler. I was pretty confident in my navigation within Edinburgh, although I’m a bit hazy on the details of the area around the West End itself so I spent a bit of time the week before studying maps of Edinburgh and the surrounding area. Plotting a 15 mile radius around the finish gave possible start locations as far afield as Kirkcaldy or Dunfermline (evil as it would require a detour over the Forth Road Bridge!), West Lothian (Linlithgow, Bathgate etc.), either NW or E of the Pentlands, A7 or A68 corridors to the South, or East Lothian (Humbie, Haddington or Aberlady). My experience from 2019 was that there are two basic challenges to solve. Firstly, once you are dropped, working out (roughly) where you are and therefore which direction to set off in. Secondly, keeping a roughly optimal course towards the finish location. Plus of course running as fast as you can while doing so!

On the day of the race I took the excellent Ember bus service which runs direct from Bridge of Earn to Edinburgh, getting off at Haymarket. This was only a short walk to the finish, and was a handy way to familiarise myself with the immediate surroundings (and grab a cup of tea and second breakfast). Registration at Pedal House was quick and easy, and there was space to get ready and also leave a drop bag with a change of clothes for afterwards. We were all given a small sealable bag for phone and watch to go in (don’t forget to start your watch before sealing it). Just before 10am, all 25 or so of the competitors (for both distances) were taken to the waiting coach and after a short briefing, blindfolded and off we went!

Found the finish location… hoping to be back in a couple of hours!
Finished 2nd overall 😄

Of course we couldn’t see anything, but it was a bright day and you could tell which side of the coach the sun was shining on. As a result I was fairly convinced that we were headed East or Southeast, so was fully expecting to be dropped somewhere in East Lothian. After dropping off the 10 mile runners, eventually the coach stopped again and we could remove the blindfolds. Stepping off the coach, we were right at a bus stop labelled “Bo’ness”, so the first challenge was solved right away! Re-orienting myself with the sun to the south I headed off East down the street, trying to remember the best way back to Edinburgh. Compared to 2019 when we were dropped at an unmarked T-junction in the countryside, and had to guess the initial direction this was much less stressful! A short distance later there was a sign for the waterfront path which seemed like a good bet.

After having sat on the bus for an hour, fully hydrated, I had to make a pit stop at the first available bushes and watched as everyone else ran past! Setting off again, I reached the waterfront and picked up signs for National Cycle Network route 76. I remembered that this went all the way to Edinburgh via North Queensferry, and sure enough came across a sign indicating 20 miles to Edinburgh. Before long I’d passed a big group and pair of runners, but I was pretty convinced there were still at least three people ahead, but there was no sign of them – either they were already far ahead, or had taken a different route. After a few miles I came to the village of Blackness, where I made my only real navigational error. The cycle path turned inland, but the footpath was signed straight on. I followed the footpath, but in the end it just went right round the headland past Blackness Castle, and rejoined the cycle path which had cut about a quarter of a mile off!

The next five miles were straightforward to navigate as the path wound through woodlands, passed through the grounds of Hopetoun House, and then followed a minor road until entering South Queensferry. Passing under the Queensferry Crossing and the Forth Road Bridge, I knew from my map reconnaissance that NCN76 went straight on, but a shorter route was to turn right as I passed under the Forth Rail Bridge. Turns out several other runners did follow NCN76, adding a couple of extra miles around the headland and past Dalmeny House. Probably very scenic but not the fastest route!

After the short climb out of South Queensferry, it wasn’t long before reaching the A90. Not the most scenic route but direct and with a good cycle path all the way alongside it. Navigation was simple here as I could follow the dual carriageway as it entered the city and turned into Queensferry Road. There was a surprising amount of climb here (previously I had only taken this route by car and in my head it was fairly flat) but before long I had passed the Barnton, Quality Street and Blackhall junctions and knew I only had a couple of miles remaining. Turning right before Stewart Melville’s college, there were a few short climbs up to the art galleries and up from the Water of Leith into the West End proper. A dash past the cathedral, over the tram lines and finally up to the EICC and the finish!

Arriving back at Pedal House, I was able to open my bag, stop my watch and found out that I had finished second overall, with a time of 2 hours and 13 minutes and 17 miles covered. The winner had finished just under 2 hours, following essentially the same route (minus the Blackness detour) – an excellent effort, and far enough ahead that I didn’t feel I might have caught him if only I had gone a little faster! One of the side effects of having no GPS watch or phone is that you have to judge your pace by feel. Besides the first few mile when I went off like a bat out of hell (catching up the field after a wee stop), I was pretty consistently in the mid 7 mins/mi, so I’m happy with that 😄 I got a nice wooden finisher’s memento for my troubles and had time to get changed, see the third placed runner come in, before grabbing a quick lunch, pint and the bus home!

It looks like organisers are running another Drop in Glasgow later this year, and also launching a new event called the Renegade where you have to get as far away from the start within a time limit. I may just have to give it a go… will you?

Moncrieffe Hill

One of our goals with this blog was to share some of our favourite local routes, and encourage you all to head out and explore where you live. So this post is long overdue and features not just a single route, but covers all of the various trails you can explore on Moncrieffe Hill. Situated just to the South of Perth and overlooking Bridge of Earn, Moncrieffe is our local hill – in fact I can get from our doorstep to the top in under 20 minutes and have run up, down and around it countless times!

Moncrieffe Hill from Bridge of Earn

At only 223m (732 feet) high it’s not the biggest but since it’s right by the banks of the Tay and Earn you tackle it essentially from sea level, and with no nearby peaks it is classified as a Marilyn. There are plenty of interesting things to be found on the hill, besides great views all around – over Perth and Kinnoull Hill to the North, over Strathearn to the South as far as the Lomond Hills and the Ochils, and along the Tay to the East. There are sites of two Iron Age forts at the main summit (called Moredun top = gaelic for “Big Fort”) and the lower Western top, at least two disused ice houses, various wooden sculptures (the giant spiders are particularly fun to encounter at night!), and lots of wildlife. Especially if you are out at dusk, you have a good chance of encountering deer, squirrels, foxes and there is a badger sett – although the badgers remain elusive! Depending on the time of year, you can expect to see snowdrops, wild garlic, bluebells, forget-me-nots and a wide variety of woodland plants. Apart from the very top, the hill is covered with mature, mixed forest and is managed by the Woodland Trust, who maintain a network of paths, car parks and waymarked routes. Early this year, they have just resurfaced many of the paths with fine gravel, making them more accessible, as well as renewing all the trail marker posts.

Panorama from Moredun Top

Access to the hill is via one of the two car parks / trail heads off the Rhynd Road which runs right round the Eastern end of the hill. The larger car park (Tay) is at the North, and the smaller (Earn) is to the South. Both have bike parking too – although many of the trails are perfectly suited to mountain biking as well as walking and running. There is a downloadable trail map, as well as maps at each of the two car parks, but there are also a wide range of unmarked, smaller paths to be found – as well as the possibility of going off trail into the open woods. One word of warning though, it’s best to save venturing off trail for the winter and early spring when the bracken and nettles are low to reduce the chance of both stings, and being bitten by ticks which are very common – check your legs when you get home! Below you can see my Strava heat map – which covers pretty much all of paths that exist, but I’m sure there are a few more still to be found if you look carefully!

Blue and White Trails

Starting from the Tay car park, the Blue and White trails are short loops (approximately 1.8 and 2.6 miles, respectively). After following the wide, winding trail up from the car park, the Blue trail makes a short loop on a good path, passing several of the sculptures, before returning down the main access path to the car park. The White trail ascends further via slightly steeper paths and passes close by the main (Moredun) and secondary tops. It’s easy to step off the main path if you want to go right to the tops, which provide great views over Strathearn to the South.

Yellow Trail

The Yellow trail extends the White trail to a total of 4.6 miles by adding a loop out to the East. There are two roughly parallel paths that run along the top of the Eastern ridge of the hill, and back along the bottom, several hundred feet lower (or vice versa). The path connecting these is steep and straight at the Western end, and a slightly shallower zig-zag at the Eastern end. This route covers the majority of the major paths and is a good way to familiarise yourself with the whole hill. It also has around 900 feet of elevation change, so is a good workout for both climbing and descending!

Unmarked Trails

Besides the main waymarked trails, there is plenty more to explore! One suggestion (following much of the former red route), starts from the Earn car park at the Southeastern end of the hill. Climb the wide track for about a third of a mile until it joins the yellow trail, and follow this straight on. Where the yellow arrows point up and right, continue straight and follow an undulating track all the way along the bottom of the hill. After a mile, the track drops down towards the motorway and just before reaching the edge of the woods, rises back up to the right and round the Western flank of the hill. At a major track junction follow the signs for “Hill Forts” and you’ll arrive at the lower of the two summits. A choice of paths now leads on towards the main summit. Descend back to join the yellow trail and follow either the upper or lower branches back to the Earn car park.

The Rhynd Road and A912 loop itself also deserves a mention. At 7.5 miles and with 450ft of climbing concentrated to the North side of the hill, it makes a challenging road run. For me, getting round in under 1 hour is a good benchmark to aim for! On the South of the hill, there is a long flat straight which has official “measured kilometer” signs on it, making it agood location for interval training – but beware of fast cars!

Viewpoint overlooking Bridge of Earn
Trig point on the lower of the two summits
Earn car park
Green alkanet in full bloom
Looking Southwest across Strathearn
Moncrieffe Estate entrance from Bridge of Earn

Alternative access routes

There are a couple of good short cuts available to get onto the hill either from the Perth (North) or Bridge of Earn (South) sides. From Perth, follow the Rhynd Road, and turn off right into the driveway signed “Upper Tarsappie”, approximately half a mile before the Tay car park. Follow the drive between two houses and go straight ahead through a gate. A path follows the edge of a field straight on before a gate leads in to the woods. A short distance ahead, the path meets the Blue, White and Yellow trails and you can continue on your way.

From Bridge of Earn, there are several options if you want to avoid the long, straight drag along the Rhynd road to the car park. Leaving Bridge of Earn, head straight on to enter the Moncrieffe estate, and follow the road as it curves left parallel to the motorway. Cross the bridge to your right, and then you can choose from several routes. First, you can turn left into a field, and head up into the woods. A short stretch of pathless woodland leads to the main lower path, and you can head left or right before continuing your climb via one of the routes already mentioned. There is also a steep (and sometimes muddy) track which provides a more direct route, roughly straight ahead depending on exactly where you intersect the lower path. This zig-zags upwards, finishing with a steep set of steps thought a cleft in the hillside that always makes me think of the Stairs of Cirith Ungol from Lord of The Rings. Fortunately there is no tunnel, or spider’s lair to be found at the top! The stairs end on the Yellow and White trails, just to the East of the lower top. Alternatively, from the motorway, you can continue along the road, turning left at the fork, past the stable block (now converted to housing), and find a path which runs along the lower edge of the hill, behind a walled garden and several houses. Either follow this all the way along until you reach the Earn car park access road, or at one of several points choose to bash directly up through the woods to reach the lower hill path. As mentioned earlier, it’s probably wise to avoid these routes between late Spring and Autumn to avoid having to spend time removing ticks form your legs afterwards!

Other favourite spots

A few other interesting routes to mention. Firstly, there are two alternatives to the main path up to the Moredun Top. The first (which has its own Strava segment) is a steep climb up a grassy bank – fine when it’s dry but a slippery challenge when wet, especially for descending! On the other (East) side of the top, several overgrown paths converge and head down through the woods to rejoin the main upper track. A good option if climbing or descending to the East to avoid having to skirt around to the Western side of the top for the main path or the scramble. Secondly, there are two interesting little paths that can be found tucked in between the higher and lower paths towards the East of the hill. One is a steep grassy path (Strava segment) that is great fun to run down – the only question being quite how fast you dare to go! The other is a narrow path that runs parallel to the upper and lower paths, and comes out at the mid-way point of the zig-zags above the Earn car park. There is lots more to find too – so have fun exploring!

A tale of two Garmins

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Earlier this year, I ditched the trusty old Garmin Forerunner 35 that I’ve been using for several years in favour of a Garmin fēnix 6 Pro. Both are great watches actually – and I would recommend them both, but for different reasons. In this post I’ll be giving you my take on the pros and cons of each model.

Before you read any further, it’s worth bearing in mind the kind of features I look for in a running watch. Firstly, I’m not interested in using any of the ‘smart watch’ features – such as music control, messages, and phone notifications. Both watches have these capabilities to some extent but I’ve not used them so they won’t feature in this review. Secondly, I run regularly off-road and often long / ultra distances – if you’re primarily running shorter distances or on a track then other watches might suit you better. Thirdly, I love having lots of of data to geek out on after my run!

Fēnix 6 unboxing
First time on my wrist, with Forerunner 35 in the background

Forerunner 35

The Forerunner 35 is what I’d consider to be an entry-level running watch, with more features than activity trackers (Garmin Vivoactive, Fitbit, etc), but still at a very reasonable price-point. In fact, even though the RRP is £130, the watch was released in 2016 and it’s easy to find it for under £70 new, or even less if you go for refurbished or eBay! For an old watch it still packs in a lot of features. All of the basic running features are there, including accurate GPS tracking, cadence counting, lap timing, integrated wrist-based heart rate monitoring and some basic workout profiles including HR and pace zones. As a multi-sport watch there are also activity profiles for cycling, swimming and general workouts. The watch has a small black-and-white LED screen, and an easy-to-use four button system for navigating around the menu system. There is a surprising amount of configurability – for example you can choose which stats you’d like to display during a run – which can be set up on the watch itself and/or using the Garmin Connect software on a computer or phone. The watch comes with Bluetooth for wireless syncing and a combined charging/data USB cable.

For those of you who haven’t used Garmin Connect, it collects and presents all of your data either through the web or mobile app. Personally, I prefer to keep track of my runs in Strava (which integrates seamlessly with Connect), but Connect is great for exploring biometric data such as min/max heart rate, sleep, step count etc. as well as recording weight.

So lots of positives! The main limitations of the watch are two-fold. Firstly, there is no navigation capability so if you want to follow a specific route you’ll need either good old map and compass, or carry a phone with a navigation app on it. Secondly, the battery life. When new, I found that the battery would last for activities up to 8 hours with the HR monitor and GPS enabled and 11 hours with GPS only. Plenty of juice for most runs up to marathon and even short ultra distance, and with my usual training load this means charging (which only takes about 30 mins for a full charge) once or twice a week. After several years of use the battery life started to suffer a bit, dropping to about 5 hours. One brilliant feature of the Forerunner 35 is that, unlike many other similar watches, you can charge midway through an activity, while still recording. The charging cable also happens to clip on to the side of the watch, so if you’re running or hiking for the whole day (or longer) you can easily carry a small power bank in your hand and charge without even needing to remove the watch from your wrist! I used this at several ultras, including the LLCR130 (27 hours), where I probably had to charge 4 or 5 times along the way. The battery indicator also gives you a warning when you drop to the lowest charge level so you have plenty of time to recharge without the activity being auto-saved!

Charging the Forerunner 35 on the go!

The verdict: still a great all-round running watch at a very compelling price point as long as you don’t want navigation and run up to 50k ultra distance (or are willing to charge on the go). Julie is still using hers, and mine has been handed down to our eldest, who will hopefully get a good few years use out of it yet!

Fēnix 6 Pro

In time for the Lady Anne’s Way 100 miler in January, we decided it would be worth at least one of us having a watch with navigation capability, as the route is quite tricky (and largely unmarked). Some research led us to the Fēnix. Sticking within the Garmin ecosystem that I know and love, the Fēnix is Garmin’s flagship ‘Adventure’ watch – with many more bells and whistles than a ‘Running’ watch like the Forerunners. The Fēnix comes in a range of options – the main one being the 6S, 6 and 6X, which are the small (42mm), medium (47mm) and large (51mm) diameters. The larger the watch, the larger the battery, as well as some others like a solar panel ring, sapphire glass and ‘Pro’ option (larger internal storage, more routing and activity features). I opted for the Fēnix 6 Pro, which offers up to 36 hours battery life in normal GPS mode. The Fēnix 7 has recently come out, which means the 6 is quite well discounted, and I paid £450, compared to £600-1000 for the 7, depending on which model you look at!

So what’s new and improved compared to the Forerunner 35? Quite a lot! The larger, colour screen is put to good use and there are endless choices of data to display during and outwith activities. It’s also possible to see a lot more activity data directly on the watch – for example the route (including elevation), historical heart rate data and much more. Navigating the many menus and screens is complex to start with, and it takes a little practice to learn to use the 5 buttons effectively but I soon got used to it. Even more data can be be accessed in Garmin Connect such as stress, “body battery”, more detailed sleep stats and respiration rate. Whether these are actually useful I’m not so sure, but they’re interesting to look at! The only measurement I found not so good was the pulse oximeter, which never seemed to give reliable readings and is said to use up a lot of battery – so I turned it off. There is probably a lot more that can be done on the watch too with the addition of apps that can be downloaded via the Connect IQ store and then synced to the watch.

The navigation functionality is also really great. It’s possible to create routes (Garmin calls them courses) either in Connect or Strava (note – the route needs to be public and ‘starred’) and then sync them to the watch. Alternatively, you can generate routes from a particular starting location on the watch itself – including mid-run options like “shortest route back to start”. When running on a course, additional stats become available such as the estimated time of completion as well as really useful info on upcoming climbs (how long and how high), and how much of the total climb in the course has been completed. It’s great on a long ultra or run to know when you’ve done more than half the climbing, or that the next climb is only half a mile long! Actually panning and zooming the map view is a bit awkward, but the default zoom level is absolutely fine most of the time, and combined with the turn indicator which notifies you of upcoming turns it’s very straightforward and definitely helped us out at several points during the LAW100. There is also an electronic compass widget, which is handy – although I’d always rely on a real compass and map as a backup!

A couple of other features are worth mentioning. As well as Bluetooth, the Fēnix 6 has inbuilt WiFi, so you can download software updates direct to the watch as well as fetch live weather data. Unlike the Forerunner 35, the Fēnix 6 has Garmin’s training advisor enabled (both on the watch and in the app). This tracks your weekly training load, split into low/high aerobic and anaerobic, and provides workout – and rest day – suggestions. I haven’t really used the workout plans as I prefer to make my own training plan, but it has definitely been helpful to make sure I run enough in the low aerobic zone.

Finally, let’s talk about battery life. As mentioned, the 6 Pro claims up to 36 hours of battery life. From our experience at LAW100, it lasted about 18. To be fair, this was with GPS tracking, HR monitoring and crucially, I used the map view quite extensively with the screen backlight turned on (as much of the run was at night). Unfortunately, the default battery settings don’t provide you with a low battery warning, and the watch just stopped and auto-saved my run part-way through! There are some fairly extensive power management settings that you can adjust. There is an ‘expedition mode’ GPS, which uses less power but is significantly less accurate according to my testing. It’s also possible to set a battery warning (e.g. at 30 mins remaining), at which point you can have the watch switch to expedition mode and connect it up to a power bank for charging. Unfortunately the charging port on the Fēnix 6 is on the back of the watch face, so you do need to take it off while charging and pop it in your pocket. However, it took less than an hour to charge up to 75%, which saw me through the remaining 9 hours of the race. It will still record while charging too, of course!

As I mentioned earlier, the Fēnix 7 is now out so it’s worth considering what more you’d get by buying the 7 instead of the 6. The most major change is the introduction of a touch screen. This will make navigating the map view much easier via swiping/pinching but to be honest I rarely need to do this. This reviewer also mentioned there are some additional software features, the battery life is a bit longer too, but in my opinion sticking with the 6 is the best option right now!

The verdict: a significant upgrade over the Forerunner 35, both in cost and in features. If you need navigation and/or longer battery life, or just want more data to play with I totally recommend it!

Lady Anne’s Way 100

This blog took quite a long time to write… much like the race did to complete! We hope you enjoy reading it.

While recovering from the Pilgrim’s Ultra, Julie went looking for her next 100 mile adventure. It needed to ideally be in the Yorkshire area to make the logistics work and the Lady Anne’s Way 100 was the race that caught her attention. Julie was a bit nervous about navigating in winter with the longer nights and increased risk of bad weather. Support crews are not allowed as there are regular outdoor vehicle points and indoor check points/aid stations. With a very kind offer of childcare from Iain’s aunt and uncle, he was free to run too and it meant the LAW100 was the ideal race for us to run together. Iain didn’t need much convincing before our places were booked!

The run up to the race was a little tricky as the mandatory kit list is a little vague on what you need! Julie in particular was very unsure what to run in as she usually gets quite warm running and really dislikes being too hot. The week before the race it was a relatively mild January so no snow or ice to deal with but instead we had storm Malik forecast with 50-60mph gusts of wind! This was a little daunting! The week was made more stressful with the boys coming down with coughs and colds. Repeat lateral flow tests all round (all negative) and negative PCR tests for the boys meant that by Friday all the bags and kit were packed and we were good to go.

We loaded everyone into the car after school on Friday and dropped the kids off for a fun weekend at Chapelknowe on our way to race registration at Skipton Town Hall on the Friday night. We arrived about 9pm and signed in, picked up our LAW100 drop bags, trackers and numbers and dropped off our finish bags which would be heading to Penrith ahead of us. We were all set.

We had booked a room at the Woolly Sheep Inn which was just a minute down the road and had a car park where we were able to leave the car for the weekend. It looks like a lovely little pub and it would have been great to sit and have a drink in front of the open fire but we had drop bags to sort and an early night to get so we headed straight to our room. It was ideal too, situated in a separate building at the rear of the pub garden so nice and quiet and direct access to the car for leaving early in the morning!

Our drop bags would be heading to CP6 and CP9 so we filled them with spare shoes, some extra clothes and food to replenish our supplies. With everything packed and checked we headed to bed with the alarm set for 4am. Race start was at 6am just up the road at Skipton Castle.

Neither of us slept well even thought the room was very nice and quiet, but when the alarm went off at 4am we were keen to get started. Plenty of time for breakfast and a couple of cups of tea, final checks of bags etc and we headed to the start at about 5.30. We handed over drop bags, used the loos in the town hall which was helpfully open and then waited for the start. With only a very light drizzle we opted not to wear our waterproof jackets – although we were in the minority! The start was a very relaxed affair with us all congregating outside the castle gates at just before six. There was no pre race briefing and we were told to start when the clock struck 6am.

Skipton – Kettlewell (CP3 / 22mi)

At 6 exactly headlamps were on and we headed off up the road out of Skipton. The first couple of miles are completely different to the official Lady Anne’s Way route which you rejoin just before Embsay. We started off just at the tail of the front runners keen to find a space that meant we wouldn’t be waiting to cross stiles at Embsay (there are a few). Iain felt that Julie was pushing the pace a little too much but she prefers to take the first couple of miles a bit faster before settling down to an easier pace. The navigation was straightforward and we were soon crossing the fields behind Embsay with the first of many stiles! It was fun to start the race in the dark and the first few miles flew by. The wind wasn’t too bad and it was still quite mild (Julie was already wondering if the Flanci fleece leggings were a mistake!).

Once past Embsay there are a few miles of farm track and fields (we were getting used to the gates and stiles – there are a lot!) then a small climb over Halton Edge before a short road section to Barden Bridge and the first vehicle point. Race numbers were recorded at all the vehicle points/check points (except the last which was unmanned) but we didn’t need water so were straight on our way. The next section is along river bank, the sky was now light and we were feeling good. Runners were well spaced out by now and we were happy to do our own thing! The navigation was easy as you follow the river for the majority of this section to Burnsall where you head away from the river and across farmland. There is a short road section through Hebden before you are back to more fields and farm tracks. The second vehicle point was at the National Parks car park in Grassington. This is a little way off the Lady Anne’s Way but Grassington is at least a pretty village to run through and if you were taking a more leisurely pace then the bakery looked very nice. There are also toilets at the car park which was handy. We didn’t stop and were soon heading back to where we had left the Way and looking forward to the next check point which was indoors at the village hall in Kettlewell. Standing in our way, we had to tackle the first big climb of the day and Julie thinks with the weather conditions it was the hardest. This was the first point the wind became a really big issue!

Out of Grassington you head up onto the fells for the first time, heading for Bycliffe Road. Iain enjoyed the settlement field system that you have to run through (a few more stiles) and the barren terrain up past Bare House. Navigation was straightforward using the GPX file of the route on Iain’s watch. The only point where he found it hard to find the exact path was little further on when we were at Capplestone Gate. We knew the direction we had to go but couldn’t find a good path through the boggy heathery moorland! The shake holes and old mine shafts are really interesting around this point (Julie is glad it wasn’t misty!)

The guide book for the Lady Anne’s Way also has fantastically detailed descriptions of the route and very clear maps (which we carried but didn’t have to use). The wind on this section was horrendous at about 50mph and it only got worse as we climbed and got more exposed. The rain also got heavier and wind-blown so we had to stop and put rain coats on. At times we were running with a side wind which made travelling in a straight line interesting and at several points we end up bumping in to each over! Iain looked very comical from behind running while leaning at about 45 degrees! A headwind was particularly challenging as it made running almost impossible and at points felt like you could barely move forward. One particularly comical downhill had us running into a head wind which resulted in our faces being wobbled around like when a dog puts his head out of a car window at speed. It wasn’t pretty and was not very enjoyable! The few sections the wind was behind you required a lot of concentration and braking to stay in control. Julie had a couple of points where she was nearly blown off her feet and you had to be really careful opening and closing gates that they weren’t ripped out of your hands by the wind. We were both aware that we were using far more energy than was ideal but didn’t want to slow and be on this exposed section for any longer than was necessary.

We finally made it into Kettlewell after what felt like an age and were pleasantly surprised to find we were still keeping to Julie’s schedule for a sub 24hr race. However we both felt like we had run nearer 50 miles rather than the 20-odd we actually had which was worrying – mainly due to the additional effort needed to fight through the wind. We headed in to a brilliant aid station with loads of food choices including soup and an all important cup of tea. We stayed slightly longer than we had intended so we could have soup and regroup after the challenges of the fells.

Ready for the start
First light along the River Wharfe
Climbing up through an old field system above Grassington
Headed up and into the wind, approaching Capplestone Gate
First checkpoint – time to eat!

Kettlewell – Askrigg (CP6 / 39mi)

The next section from Kettlewell runs along the side of the valley initially, parallel to the road and being at a lower level the wind wasn’t such a problem. Still lots of stiles to cross, though! Just at the edge of the small hamlet of Starbotton you cross over the road and head down to the river. Someone had come out with some cow bells to offer their support which was much appreciated. Crossing over the river, we then headed along the bank for a short way before the river bends away and the path rejoins the river again just before Buckden. After following the river a little further you come out onto the road and skirt the edge of Buckden itself before taking the steep path up the hill from the car park. This next section is on good gravel paths, although still plenty of gates to open! As we were nearing the road above Cray we got to see a waterfall being blown back upwards like chimney smoke in the wind! The next vehicle point was on the road just before the track up to Hell Gap, midway up the second big climb of the day. The wind was still atrocious but the views were wonderful and the clouds had cleared to leave a blue sky. The wind made the going tough across Stake Moss but the route was at least easy to follow and there weren’t too many gates to wrestle in the wind. Gradually we started descend towards Wensleydale, and the track gradually improved into a tarmac road as we passed the dramatic outcropped top of Addlebrough on our right.

After a quick chat with the marshal who was sensibly hunkered down in his Land Rover at VP5 and we were on our way, focussed on getting to check point 6 and our drop bags. Iain’s feet were causing him some bother and we were looking forward to some warm food after so long out in the wind. Immediately after the vehicle point the route turns right and heads East over open moorlands. For about a mile we had the wind at our backs – and it was a wild ride, but at least made a change from fighting it to simply steering and staying on our feet. Before long we dropped off the hillside, passed the small village of Worton and crossed the River Ure. Looking longingly at the sign for the short direct road into Askrigg we made a loop further East to Nappa Mill and up to the road at Nappa Hall. After 100m of road, we entered a field and managed to find the path down the rocky escarpment and headed directly across farmland to Askrigg. We came across a beck which was big enough to result in wet feet. If there was a bridge here, we didn’t find it and just splashed right across. A handful more stile crossings and then the short run along the road into Askrigg and and CP6.

This was the first point where we had access to our drop bags, so we restocked our packs with food and water for the next section, ate some of our own supplies (gluten free sausage rolls!) as well as had more of the excellent soup and tea that was on offer. A few other runners traipsed in while we were there, all looking like they’d had a hard time in the wind. One was getting some serious bandaging done to a nasty-looking gash on his arm, not sure how he got that 😮 . Julie was sitting 3rd in the ladies ranking, less than an hour behind second place so was keen to keep moving. As mentioned earlier Iain had pretty sore feet, and they turned out to be pretty badly macerated from crossing all the boggy moorland above Grassington, not to mention a few becks. A quick change of socks seemed like the best plan and after a stop of about 20 minutes we headed back out onto the next section.

Looking up the valley towards Buckden
Climbing up from Buckden towards Cray
Waterfall heading the wrong way – up 🙃
Over the top of Stake Moss
Last section down towards Askrigg

Askrigg – Winton (CP9 / 62mi)

Unfortunately, we headed out the wrong way 🤦‍♂️ Too busy eating to check the map, we carried on down the road we had approached the checkpoint on. Fortunately we’d only gone a few hundred metres when we realised our error, but this was our first (albiet minor) navigation error. Retracing our steps we headed off on the correct route which headed over more fields and minor roads, roughly paralleling the river all the way the hamlet of Sedbusk. Iain’s feet were a bit better thanks to the change of socks at the CP but running was becoming quite an effort, even though the terrain was relatively easy going. Concentrating on keeping up a reasonable pace, we missed a stile – again only a few metres detour, but errors were definitely starting to creep in. Dusk was starting to fall as we made the planned diversion through Hardraw (bypassing Hawes), making decent speed and no further navigational issues! By the time we reached VP7 our head torches were back on and darkness had really fallen as we left the road and headed back onto the fells, this time to face the steepest climb of the entire route – the mile long slog up Cotter End.

Just before sunset, Iain forcing a smile!

We could see the light of another runner about half a mile a head of us on the climb, which gave some motivation to keep striding up the grassy slope. Passing a couple of rocky outcrops (complete with in-situ lime kiln!) the path levelled out and the wind hit us head on again as we reached the “High Road”. This was relatively runnable, gradually downhill and even though it was only about 6 miles long, seemed to last forever. Based on our experience of the last two high sections we knew it would be cold and hard going, and had taken the approach of eating plenty before the climb with the aim of not having to slow down and fumble around with food when up in the full force of the wind. However, by the time we eventually got back down to the river we were both feeling decidedly low on fuel. Iain really started to struggle a bit at this point and what should have been fairly runnable terrain turned into a bit of a hike. We did manage to get some more food down as we made our way through a couple of farms and eventually back onto the road for the short out-and-back stretch to VP8 outside Pendragon Castle. At 10 miles in total, this section was the longest between vehicle points, and it felt it!

Down in the valley we were out of the worst of the wind again but Iain’s feet had got quite sore, and combined with the exertions of the last 50+ miles, we were reduced to walking pace for most of the next nondescript few miles to Kirkby Stephen. From there it was only about another mile of road before we arrived in Winton and the warm and welcoming lights of CP9. More soup, tea and restocking here, and as it was after 10pm and a long cold night was expected we put on an an extra layer. Iain took the time to inspect his feet, which were still very sore and macerated (pics at the bottom of the blog for those with a strong stomach). He had hoped to make another change of socks, but couldn’t find them in his drop bag. It turned out later than they were stuffed inside his spare shoes to save space! We decided the best approach was to try taping, and ended up wrapping his entire forefoot with KT tape while the socks dried on the radiator!

Winton – Kirkby Thore (CP12 / 82mi)

Leaving the CP, Iain commented that his feet felt as good as new so the KT tape solution seemed to be a good one, but his body had gone into shutdown and the rest of the night was going to be mainly walking. Julie was still feeling OK at this point (and was a bit frustrated at the slow pace, but didn’t show it – much)! Heading out of Winton we passed a police van waiting at the main crossroads – not sure if they were on the lookout for Cumbrian ne’er-do-wells, or just watching the strange procession of ‘runners’.

The next section to Chruch Brough proved to be quite navigationally challenging. After crossing fields to Kaber, we struggled to find the correct path onwards. Supposedly there was a plank bridge over the Popping Beck, but we couldn’t find it and eventually just jumped the river, climbed the first of several fences and got back on course. The route down to the bridge over the River Belah was also tricky as we missed a stile and again had to hop a fence, scramble down a banking, and make our way back on course before missing (yet again) a small ‘stile’ which was a tiny hole in a wall. Our GPS watch kept us from going too far off track, but it was demoralising and slowed progress even further. By now the clouds had cleared and we took a minute to turn off our lights, and letting our eyes adjust to the darkness we were able to see glow of the Milky Way stretching across the sky above us – a special moment! After following the River Belah for about a mile, and a short stretch of road, we once again got a bit lost bypassing Sowerby Park farm, and paralleling the intended route, but on the wrong side of a ditch and fence. After scrambling under and over, we got back on track and saw another runner ahead who seemed to be having even more trouble with the route approaching from a completely different angle! Reaching the main road and the relative civilisation of Church Brough, we were back on easier terrain and managed to get back on top of navigation for the rest of the route.

Our next challenge was when without warning, the battery on Iain’s watch died! The reason for this will be covered in a future gear review blog post. Fortunately, our progress so far was autosaved, and after hooking it up to a power bank we were able to restart recording and navigation within a few minutes, but it was frustrating nonetheless. As it was now past midnight, the temperature had dropped to nearly freezing and we had been mainly walking for several hours so we stopped briefly to put on all our extra layers, hats and an additional thick pair of gloves that we shared throughout the night. At least Storm Malik seemed to have blown itself out by now! Slowly we made our way past Flitholme, crossed the disused Eden Valley Railway, and before too long arrived at VP10 in Warcop. The lovely marshals here had hot tea on offer, which was gratefully received! They also let us know that a resident up ahead had complained about the noise of runners coming through their farmyard, so we should try to keep the noise down as much as possible.

From Warcop to Appleby-in-Westmorland, the route meandered along fields and back lanes. We were glad to have our new LEDLenser NEO10R head torch, which was powerful enough in beam mode to scan the fence line on the far side of each field to locate the stile so we were able to take mostly direct lines from stile to stile. The main point of interest was a mile or so of woodland right by the banks of the River Eden. The path was twisty, rooty and slippy, with a steep drop right down into the river on our right. Iain loves this kind of path, and led the way (for a change), but Julie was not happy with her footing and was worried at several points that she might slip into the river! We made it through unscathed and then made the short but steep climb up round the castle walls to VP11 at the top of the main street in Applebly, in front of the castle gates. Here we were advised that due to the aforementioned noise complaints there was a diversion up ahead.

Instead of following the official Lady Anne’s Way (which went straight through Far Broom farm), we were to stay on a tarmac road all the way to Long Marton. This didn’t make much difference distance-wise, but was much easier going. Passing quietly through Long Marton and another farmstead, before long the lights of Kirkby Thore could be seen ahead, and the welcome sight of the final indoor checkpoint! No drop bags at this one, so a relatively short stop here – time for more hot soup, warm up hats and gloves over the radiator and then back out on the road, for the final 15 or so miles to Penrith.

Kirkby Thore – Penrith (Finish)

Already 5am in the morning, our original aim of a 24 hour finish was long gone. We were both tired, and with the second placed lady now more than two hours ahead, Julie’s attention was focussed on keeping hold of third place. Between the last two checkpoints the gap behind had closed by 10 minutes, but we were still about three hours ahead. Julie was able to use this (and the fact we weren’t going fast enough to stay comfortably warm) as motivation to get Iain to run a few sections!

The next few miles outside Kirkby Thore were over fields to Ousenstand Bridge and the tussocky ground was hard going. Iain was starting to lose it and was hallucinating fences in the middle of empty space! After crossing the river, a short road section led into more interesting and varied paths on the estate behind Crossrigg Hall. The miles seemed to be simultaneously passing very slowly (they were – we barely averaging 20 min/mile at this point), and counting down quite rapidly. We couldn’t find the right way out of a field so decided to climb the wall over onto the road that took us towards Cliburn. Before long we were back off road again for the final few field crossings up towards the final vehicle point VP13 at the oddly named Street House. The going was a bit grim underfoot here as the fields were very waterlogged but with an inconsistent crust of ice over the top. The sky was lightening as we reached the vehicle point, and we would have been glad of the friendly face of a marshal but there was just a reflective jacket hanging on the gate and a water container. We didn’t need anything so headed off down the road.

The final stretch towards Penrith was quite challenging (and possible dangerous). We were able to pack away our head torches as it became fully light but both of us became aware we were starting to micro-sleep as we were walking. As the route was taking us along the narrow shoulder of the Wetheriggs road, fortunately there was not too much traffic at 7.30am on a Sunday morning, we may have been weaving a little! There were quite a few other runners in sight and we trudged along the road, which was a strange experience as typically near the end of such a long race the field is quite strung out and usually people’s competitive instincts kick in to make it a bit of a race to the finish. As it was, I think everyone must have suffered equally from the combination of wind, distance and cold and were all walking it in like a bunch of zombies! A couple of miles across more farmland took us out in front of Brougham Hall – we’d passed several other of Lady Anne’s castles through the night but hadn’t seen much in the dark. Before long we also passed Brougham Castle, under the A66 and up the hill into Penrith. It was now mid-morning, and we had a brief chat with a local runner out for their Sunday morning run who was incredulous to hear that we’d come all the way from Skipton!

Despite all the walking overnight, we had agreed we’d aim to run the last mile down into Penrith. In the end honour was satisfied as we ran about half a mile before the road took a turn uphill again. We did manage to run the last hundred metres around the corner and under the gateway into Penrith castle. There wasn’t much to see there and we weren’t quite sure where the finish was, until the finish line marshal spotted that we’d passed him and informed us that we’d in fact finished! 27 hours and 47 minutes for a total of just under 100 miles – 3rd place female finisher for Julie and joint 20th overall 😃

Second dawn of the race – still about 5 miles to go!
Outside the gates of Brougham Hall
Penrith Castle
Finished!

A short distance from the finish, the Wayfarer’s Hostel was set up receive us! We were well looked after with sausage sandwiches (including gluten free), hot drinks and lots of delicious cake. Having showers available was great, and if we’d had time we could have had a sleep in one of the bunks. As it was we had a couple of hours to sort ourselves out before being shuttle-bussed to the station for the train back to Skipton to pick up the car. Iain had been looking forward to the scenic journey on the famous Settle and Carlisle railway line, but as it was we were both fast asleep within minutes of sitting down!

Final Thoughts

Julie: Despite the added challenges caused by the weather and walking from relatively early on I really enjoyed this race and running with Iain. I will have to wait for my sub 24hr 100miles but am confident that I can achieve it! I was pleased that my feet held up pretty well, mainly thanks to my waterproof Geckowear Socks I had got for Christmas. It was unusual to be the runner with more in the tank as usually when I run with Iain I am the one keeping up – I do wonder if I could or should have tried harder to get him running again. I ended up incredibly cold by morning so would definitely pack an extra layer in my drop bag for overnight on winter races (I had 4 layers on my top half, fleece lined leggings, hat, gloves and knee length socks).

Iain: Looking back now on the race, I can’t help but feel I didn’t get the best out of myself on the day. Yes, the weather made the going tough, particularly in the first 50 miles but it was still disappointing to be reduced to walking so early on. My feet were sore, but changing socks and eventually binding them up with tape made it managable. There was nothing in particular that was stopping me from moving, but somehow I slumped into a total mental and physical shut down. I’m left wondering if had I tried harder after Winton to carb up and try and get back into a running rhythm (or even a regular run-walk), I might have found a second wind?

Still, some lessons learned – first of which is to look after my feet better. I’ve already invested in a pair of Gore-Tex shoes (which served me well in the past on previous boggy races such as the Fellsman in 2019). Secondly, I needed to find some motivation to keep pushing – knowing that I was nowhere near the front of the field, I was thinking about Julie’s placing (which was pretty much always a safe third), when if I had kept focussed on a 24 hour(ish) finish that might have kept me going.

I’m certain I could do better – and I’m planning to come back next year to prove it!

Julie: Unlike Iain I am happy with my 3rd place female finish and feel no need to go back and run it again, but I’ll be there to cheer him in at the finish line (no crews allowed on this race).

Finally, as promised there are some gross feet pics below. Scroll down… if you dare!

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KT tape repair held up well for the final 40 miles – still a lot of mud getting in through the mesh uppers through.
The maceration that caused so much pain mid-way through the race 🤢

Interview: Harriet & Karl

I’m sure many of you, like us, spent much of the second week of January following the progress of the Spine Race 2022. Known as “Britain’s most brutal”, it covers 268 miles along the remote and exposed Pennine Way from Edale in the Peak District to the finish at Kirk Yetholm, just over the border in Scotland!

This year’s overall winner was Eoin Keith (92:40:30) and the first female finisher was Debbie Martin-Consani (104:08:22). However, every finisher has their own epic story to tell, and when we spotted that Harriet and Karl Shields were running together as a couple we just knew we had to speak to them! They finished together with a time of 152:49:25 after more than 6 days on the course, and we were so pleased when they agreed to answer a few questions on their Spine experience for the blog. We hope you enjoy it!

Thanks for making the time to speak to us here at Miles Together! Please tell us a little bit about yourselves

Karl: Both now dragged kicking and screaming into our 50s, we have always loved the outdoors, the hills, walking and running, and enjoying the cake eating opportunities that such activities can lead to.  We spend a lot of time together (testament to Harriet’s patience as I cannot be easy to spend time with) and spent both working and free time together for many years until last November when we sold our family business and are now “considering our options”… many of which involve the outdoors, and cake.

Before we get to the Spine race itself, how and when did you get into running?

Karl: I sort of reversed into running from more expedition style events. I did Kilimanjaro, some alpine stuff and then the 450 mile Yukon Arctic Ultra. Running came along as I loved being out on the trails and trail running became my principle training activity to support the longer events. I did the Spine Race for the first time in 2014 and said never again… which interestingly I said again in 2018, and again about 3 weeks ago.

Harriet:  I felt I was missing out on adventures, so decided to tag along on some, then got hooked! I made many good friends on various races, and now regularly meet up for days and weekends away on trails on the North York Moors, Pennines, and Cheviots. Started with 10ks, then half marathons, road first, then trails later. Going long started when I was in Ambleside supporting Karl and watching Lakeland 50 and 100 runners go past. I decided there and then that if they can do it, then so can I.  Got into the Hardmoors races, a range of brilliantly organised and varied races in the North York Moors run by husband and wife team Jon and Shirly Steele. I only did my first marathon two months before the Lakeland 50 in 2015.  My first 100 miler was the 2017 Winter Spine Challenger, which sounds like a pretty brutal first encounter with a 100 mile race but I had a firm base of experience in hill walking to fall back on. 2017 was my best year ever with Hardmoors 1000 mile club, Hardmoors Grand Slam Marathons and Grand Slam Ultras including the 110, then finished the year off with the Cheviot Goat. Loved every (well almost every!) minute of it.

You’ve both been involved with the Spine Race in one way or other for several years – either running various Spine events, or helping out as a volunteer. How did you first get involved with the Spine community?

Harriet: My first encounter with the Spine Race was in 2014, sat in the Borders Hotel in Kirk Yetholm waiting for Karl to finish (he was taking ages), talking with Richard Lendon, Mark Hines, Eugeni Solé and a selection of other Spine royalty hearing stories of their adventures. I definitely remember stories about moose and wolverines, but it’s a bit of a blur as there may have been alcohol involved. When asked when I was going to do the Spine I laughed and said “no, I’m more than happy doing my 10K races”. Never say never eh?

Karl: The Spine Race is a black hole. It relentlessly draws you in despite any resistance you try to put up. My January would be incomplete without being part of the Spine bubble in some way.  The race itself is a beast – never the same twice, and worthy of its claim to be Britain’s Most Brutal. I’ve been involved not just race side, but also on the safety team, and checkpoint team, and the experience has been amazing (and exhausting) every time. If you want to get a feel for the race ahead of participating I’d strongly recommend volunteering.

Tell us about what lead you to deciding to run this year’s winter Spine Race together, and how you prepared for the race. Have you ever done anything like this together before?

Harriet: At the time I signed up for the winter Spine (February 2020, pre-COVID) my motivation was to get a medal in each of the four races (summer and winter, Challenger 100 miles, and full race). I already had a winter Challenger finish and summer full race finish, and planned to finish off with the summer Challenger in 2021. But then the 2021 winter race fell victim to COVID and was cancelled, and in the meantime they moved the goalposts by introducing a winter Northern Challenger covering the last 170 miles of the Pennine Way, so guess what I’ll be doing next January…

My preparation involved lots of single day trips and back to back trips with my running friends. Many an early morning dragging a tyre around in preparation for hills and snow – you never know what you will get on a winter Pennines trip. We were both pretty under-trained for this years race – a fact that made itself clear in the first couple of stages of the race. We’d had a lot going on in our work life through 2021, assisted by everyone’s friend COVID, and had really struggled to focus as much on our training as we would have liked.  We would tell anyone who listened that the first 2 days of the race were our training, the middle days tapering and then we would race on the final day. Secretly we hoped we would get by just fine on experience and good intentions… What could possibly go wrong on the Pennine Way in January eh?!

As for running together, it was a bit of a last minute decision. We had originally planned to each run our own race and check in together by phone once a day. But the weather didn’t look great for day one with the likelihood of a lot of ice in places so we didn’t think our pace would be that different and it made sense and would be safer to stick together for day one. Then I seemed to be stuck with him! But seriously, we enjoyed leg one together and decided to stay together for leg two, and so on. Both of us were comfortable running alone, but together it added to our enjoyment as it became a shared experience, both highs and lows.

A selection of Karl and Harriet’s photos from the Spine Race… we’re not quite sure we got them in the right order though!

Lots of other spine racers talk about the challenges of the route, the weather and simply the distance – sometimes as their own personal battle and sometimes forming partnerships out on the route. How did it work out for you guys – did you stay together the whole way? What were the biggest challenges?

Harriet: As soon as you accept that this is not (for mere mortals) a running race, it’s an expedition and that the weather will surprise you in every way, and remember that EVERYTHING on the Pennine Way is trying to kill you be that obstacle course stiles (with the arse-smacking silly gates at the top), barbed wire trip hazards, bottomless bogs, missing flagstones etc., then you are prepared for the challenges of the route.  It is the Spine Race’s superpower to find new and unusual ways to take you out of your comfort zone. When you add all this together with the long distance, and the short hours of daylight, foot care challenges, cumulative injuries, and sleep deprivation it does become a battle of endurance. We focused on completion not competition, and that’s an important distinction in the Spine Race. Decisions made on the first leg can end your race two or three days later so you need to know what your objectives really are and make good choices.

This is where coming into the race as an existing partnership really helps. We know each other and our strengths and weaknesses, and together are stronger than we are individually. But it’s a double edged sword as temporary partnerships of convenience made with relative strangers out on the trail can be brought to an end with a simple sentence. Bit harder to dump my husband when he was starting to struggle! 

The biggest challenge, and the one that challenged us most as a couple, was when Karl started to really struggle. Although sleep is a bit of a luxury anyway on the Spine Race, for various reasons he didn’t manage to sleep at all at the first three checkpoints, so basically from Sunday morning through to Thursday afternoon on our timings. This wasn’t great and he went a bit manic, started hallucinating badly, seeing double, and generally talking more nonsense than he normally does. This is a race of thin margins – you need every bit of your strength for yourself and your own well being. If you get stuck with a stranger who is struggling (and it’s safe to leave them) you would have to consider leaving them as otherwise your own race could be at risk.  When it’s your husband it’s harder to do that and it’s got the added emotional pain of seeing someone you love struggling so much.  As a result I needed to put a lot more of myself into caring for two, navigating for two, thinking for two, and worrying for two.  It meant that some of the sections were very slow, especially as about this time the weather decided to treat us to some zero visibility fog when you could barely see your own feet.  But he had ups and downs, and when he was functional he was his usual self and I was really glad to have him with me. After the fact, discussing it together (and sharing some thoughts we didn’t share at the time), I may have had a faster finish time had we agreed to part ways at checkpoint one, but over the full race, taking the highs and the lows, we had a better more enjoyable race together than we would have had separately.

Overall, what were the high points for you?

Harriet: The highpoint for both of us was our bivi out on the Cheviots on the final night.  Partly it was great to use the safety gear we had carried all the way so far for its actual purpose. By some trees, under the stars, we tucked ourselves into our sleeping bags and got a wonderfully luxurious two hours of quality sleep. As we got going again we got treated to a fantastic dawn over the Cheviot range.  A wonderful start to our final day on the trail as we closed in on Kirk Yetholm.

We hope you’re both recovering well from the race – how’s the recovery process been for you, and is there anything that you look back on from the race that you might have done differently (or wish had gone differently?

Harriet: Recovery is now well underway, thank you! It took us a week for sleep patterns and physical injuries to sort themselves out. Then a week of feeling ok… unless you tried to do anything more strenuous than a short stroll, which then required a long nap to recover from! We are now, three weeks on, starting to get back to “normal” and resuming our training but it will be weeks before we have the miles fully out of our legs (and the peat out of our toes).

The Spine is a race that rewards experience (experience of what works, what doesn’t, what to eat and not eat, what to carry, what to wear and when) so if we started again tomorrow it would be in the same gear as we started the race.  We would have rather had the normal route instead of the detoured route (though it was 95% the same), but it was unavoidable, and why worry about something you cannot change? The thing about the Spine Race is there is ALWAYS something unexpected around the corner, both good and bad. You’ve got to deal with the bad and welcome the good wherever you find it.  In the middle of the night, in Slaggyford (a little village on the route north of Alston) we were welcomed by a lady who had been dot watching and came out to greet us with coffee and a slice of the best cake ever.  Little moments of human kindness like that, combined with seemingly endless support from the race volunteers are what makes participating in the Spine Race such an amazing experience.

Would you do it again? Or have any advice for others thinking of setting out on a similar challenge together?

Karl: We have both learnt not to say never where the Spine Race is concerned. No immediate plans or need to do the full race again, but to be honest, that could change by the end of this week when the 2023 entries open!

The “together” aspect of this is interesting. This is a race that takes no prisoners. You need to have that internal confidence individually that you can do this solo. Especially as you never know if an injury or mishap could put your partner out of the race early.  But together, it’s good to know your relative strengths and how you work well as a team.  We would have also said if you had asked us before or during that absolute honesty and good communication was essential. That was our plan and our agreement with each other in advance – if we were together we would communicate effectively how we were feeling.  But in discussing it together frankly after the race, it appears that both of us lied to each other or omitted certain truths, generally speaking about how we were truly feeling. Our motives were good at least!!

Finally, what’s the next adventure for you?

We did the Northern Traverse, Wainwright’s Coast to Coast route together as an “ultra-holiday” back in 2018. We enjoyed it so much we signed up for the 2020 edition which was then cancelled twice and so it’s finally (hopefully!!) happening this April.  We think we hold the course record for the most hours spent asleep and eating on this race, and look forward to extending our record this time!

Sounds like you’ll have a great time – best of luck with it and we’ll look forward to seeing how you get on!

Well, that was an absolutely fascinating insight into Harriet and Karl’s Spine Race experience – we hope you enjoyed reading it as much as we did. Interestingly, there are many parallels with our recent outing at the Lady Anne’s Way 100 … and we’ll be telling you all about that in another blog post soon!

Feel The Burns 2022

Last weekend we made the short trip down to Selkirk to run the early-season “Feel The Burns” hill race. At 13 miles in length, with nearly 3000 feet of climbing, the route is certainly shorter and steeper than we’re used to. It’s hosted by volunteer group Selkirk Fund Runners, raising money for the Tweed Valley Mountain Rescue (who also provide safety cover during the event) and as Iain grew up in Selkirk, it’s basically a “home” race – not one to miss! Iain had run the race once before in 2017 so had a target of beating his previous time of 2:13:30. Julie was hoping for a finish under 2 hours and 30 minutes.

One advantage of such a ‘short’ race over typical ultras is the relaxed start time of 12 noon. We didn’t even have to get up early in order to register around 10, drop the kids off with Iain’s parents, and head back to get ready for the start. As a former ‘local’, Iain bumped into several people he knew, including his cousin Douglas MacQueen who was one of the 50+ Carnethy runners taking part, out of a total of 255 entrants. It was a lovely clear and sunny winter’s day after a pretty dry week, so excellent conditions for running.

  • Ready for the start. Lovely weather for January ☀️
  • Iain descending towards Yarrowford (Credit: Selkirk Fund Runners)
  • Finished and still buzzing
  • Julie finishing strong
  • Hard work but a great result
  • A well-earned haggis pie

From the start in a sloping, grassy field near the Corbie Linn car park, the route ascends steadily on a stony track through woods before briefly levelling out at the ‘Top Pond’ – strangely named as it’s nowhere near the top! Leaving the path, the route cuts up through heatherly slopes to the top of Peat Law, nearly 1000 feet above the start already after less than 2 miles. A brief downhill through more heather before another short climb leads to the Three Brethren. A good rolling track then leads gradually downhill for a couple of miles before a 500 foot climb to the top of Brown Knowe, the highest point on the route. This section follows the Southern Upland Way, and we had run over it in the opposite direction in November as part of the Tweed Valley Ultra (long overdue blog post coming soon – honest!).

From the summit of Brown Knowe, there is a fantastic three miles of downhill – great views down towards the Yarrow Valley if you have time to look up as the path is narrow and steep in places. Before you know it you’ve reached the water station at mile 9, just above Yarrowford. Some twisty paths through the outskirts of the village follow before you reach the dreaded sting in the tail – the 600 foot in half a mile, off-track climb up Foulshiels Hill! From here it’s downhill all the way, past Tibbie Tamson‘s grave and across the burn to rejoin the outbound route just below the Top Pond for the last mile or so to the finish!

Both of us ended up having a great race – after struggling a bit on the first big climb, Iain found his racing legs and spent most of the race neck-and-neck with his cousin, before finally dropping him on the Foulshiels climb. With a few miles to go, he realised that a sub-2 hour finish was within reach and put in a fast finish to sneak in with a time of 1:59:31. Julie ran a strong race throughout and cruised to a fantastic time of 2:25:15 for her first ever hill race.

In keeping with the Burns theme, there was a range of hot food and drinks available at the finish including the renowned Haggis pie! We totally recommend you give this race a try next year if you’re looking for a challenge early in the year – but be quick as entries filled up within a few hours and we ended up only getting in after a nervous few weeks on the waiting list. Alternatively, later in the year the Heartburn Run and the Philiphaugh Hill Race offer similar but shorter alternatives.

Both of us have now recovered well in only a few days, which is ideal as we’re now entering a taper period ready for the Lady Anne’s Way 100 miler next weekend 😃

Year in Review: 2021

It’s that time again when it’s good to take a little bit of time to reflect on the year gone by, and look ahead to what 2022 has in store. We’ve done some great things together as well as individually, here are just some of the highlights:

We didn’t get to do everything we’d planned… the Ultra Scotland 100, Stirling Marathon (again) and The OMM were all postponed due to COVID, but we still got to many more places than we managed in 2020.

Nothing says New Year like a good muddy run 🎉

Goals for 2022: Iain

I didn’t really set too many goals for last year – I was just happy to be able to get back to racing again, and managed to run pretty consistently throughout the year (except for a broken toe in March). I was very pleased to finish the LLCR130 at the second attempt after DNFing in 2019, and a second place finish was just icing on the cake. I’d hoped to get close to a 3 hour finish at the London Marathon – that didn’t happen by I still managed a big new PB of 3:26:17.

For 2022 I’ll be a bit more organised and having thought a bit about it (while out running of course) I’ve got the following goals for the year:

Check back in a year’s time to see how I get on!

Goals for 2022: Julie

2021 has been an amazing year of running I have loved the races I have been able to run, the people I have met and the solid running base I have established. I have spent a lot of time thinking about what I want next from my running and what goals to set for 2022 to help to get there! In the long term I would love to be able to enter the Lon Las Cymru Ultra in 2023 but I am aware I need to see how I get on at distances longer than 100 miles! With that in mind I have entered the KACR in July, with the goal of maintaining a fairly constant pace through the whole race with not too much drop off in the later miles of the race.

Our first race of the year is the Lady Anne’s Way 100 and my goals are to still be able to run at the end of the race and hopefully finish in under 24hr (although I think this will be weather dependent!). It will be interesting to see how Iain and I get on running 100 miles together as we definitely haven’t different strategies when running longer distances (for example Iain is definitely fater downhill than me but I am faster walking up hills than Iain!)

The other race I have in the calendar is the Stirling marathon which has repeatedly been postponed because of COVID. Iain and I originally booked this 2 years ago to run together with Iain supporting me for that distance of race. However things have moved on since then so we have decided to run seperately with Iain and I setting his own goals! I am hoping to put in some speed training and my goal is to finish in under 4hr 30min. I would like to be closer to 4hrs but I am not sure if this is doable as Stirling is quite a hilly marathon course. We will see how the training goes!

Birthday Musings

Last year on my birthday I ran my first ultra distance of 35 miles and it was the start of something amazing.  Since then, in the last year, I have enjoyed being consistent in my running, increasing my mileage and learning to listen to my body more.  Running has become a time I treasure and most of the time enjoy!  Yes, some runs are hard but there is always the satisfaction of having got out there and done it!  Family life and commitments can make it hard to fit runs in (I am not an early morning runner) but I have found it is always worth the effort. This year I have called myself a runner!  

I have run 4 ultra races and loved them!  I particularly enjoyed the longer races, the 100k St Cuthbert’s Way and the 100 mile Pilgrim’s Ultra and I am looking forward to running more longer races in the future including the Lady Anne’s Way 100 in January with Iain and the KACR in July.  I have loved meeting and chatting with other runners during races and running with them for varying distances, running with Iain and recently running couch to 5k with our eldest Isla.  I have enjoyed family runs and solo runs, trail runs and lots of miles on country roads. I must admit the beaches on the Northumberland Ultra weren’t really my thing!  

It has been a fantastic year and I am excited for the next.  At the moment Iain and I are both trying to reach the goal of 2000 miles for 2020.  We both entered December behind target but by an achievable amount so if you see us clocking up the miles on Strava that is the reason why!  I am also enjoying the added fun of Run up to Christmas challenge and being part of the team Apparently We Run.  One of my aims for the next year is to turn up to races and not feel like I shouldn’t be there… we’ll see how long it takes!

Thanks to everyone who has helped, encouraged and inspired me on my running journey this last year.  You are all awesome.  Keep doing what you enjoy!

Perth Santa Run 2021 (in the rain!)

Interview: Ashley & Shelley

Miles Together is all about running with others, whether that’s your partner, family, friends, or even your dog! This is the first of (hopefully) many blog posts where we get the chance to chat to other runners, get to know them a little bit, and find out what running together means to them.

This time we’re talking to Shelley Hall – one half of Ashley & Shelley a.k.a. Apparently We Run!

Welcome to Miles Together!  It’s great to have you on the blog – please introduce yourself to our readers.

First off thank you for having us, we are Ashley and Shelley, creators of Apparently We Run, an online running community that was created in 2019 to help all runners feel included! We wanted a completely inclusive area where all runners could share what they do without judgement, and we are very proud to say that we have created that! It is still a relatively small group which helps us interact with people and it has a real community feel rather than the groups that have 1000s of member that sometimes means people go unnoticed. That certainly doesn’t happen with us we really do try to support, encourage and hopefully even inspire every individual member 😊  Alongside this we also share our own running journey on Instagram and Twitter and with our runner’s eye views on our YouTube channel! 

There’s lots of pics on your socials of the two of you running together.  How did you get into running in the first place?  Were you runners before you met, or did you start running together? 

Yes, we certainly do a lot of running together! Ashley and I have only been together for a few years (2018) and before we met Ashley was very much the runner having run for many years with his career and also as a hobby! He petrified me in fact when he first suggested coming out for a run with me. I began my running journey with Couch to 5K in 2015 when I decided something had to change with me and how I felt about myself. I completed my first ever 10k distance some 12 months later and that is where I thought I was comfortable, not really aiming to push much further. When Ashley and I started dating he was trying to convince me to run further, and I was still trying to get over my embarrassment of running with him and him seeing me as a new runner! Learning to run together was challenging at times as I always felt I was holding him back and couldn’t run at the speeds he can but now I realise that it was never about pace and in fact it was about sharing the experiences with someone, and we certainly have many memories from sharing many hours running together.

What keeps you motivated to get out and run?  Is it the same for both of you?

Like many people, motivation to run is a struggle sometimes. We both have full time jobs and family commitments that do impact our free time. We always try to make sure we have some time to run in week and weekends as that can sometimes be the only actual time we have together as a couple and our one opportunity to escape the “normal world” as we call it. Neither of us are really motivated by speed and we tend to be very much about the next adventure especially as we have stepped into the ultra-distances in the last 12 months. I (Shelley) also used running as a way to initially lose weight and now as a way to maintain my weight, when I started running I was much larger and running has helped me manage that better. I’m not so good at diets and restricting calories.

Tell us about your best experience of running together?

Our best experience to date would be running 100km from London to Brighton in May 2021, we ran it continuously and still chat about how amazing it was and how much we want to go back and do it again! We do not have a single bad memory from that day. We went into that challenge unsure if we would complete it as it was double the distance we had ever run before, and we did wonder if we were out of our depths a little but as the run progressed we seemed to get stronger and more determined and crossing that finish line will always be a memorable moment! 

Here is our YouTube runners eye view link: https://youtu.be/RWmwjLka5rc

And the worst!

We’ve been fortunate enough so far to have had a very positive running journey together but one of the hardest runs we have had was a fundraising 33 mile ultra that we were completing for some friends who live in our community. They had very sadly lost their son to mental health back in 2020 and to help them raise awareness for mental health in children and young adults we pledged to run 33 miles for their chosen charity Young Minds. As we made this promise (Autumn 2020) unfortunately we went into another lockdown which hindered our training and delayed the date by some three weeks but we adjusted our plans and made fresh arrangements for the start of December. Family and friends were all involved and on the day set up aid stations at agreed locations which ensured we didn’t need to carry too much stuff with us. For the first part of the run everything went fabulous but unfortunately we weren’t aware that part of the route along the canal had been closed and we ended up having to detour another 3 miles after being given the wrong directions from the work men in the area that had already cost us a hour of daylight. 3 miles doesn’t really sound that much now but at the time it really did hit us mentally, alongside causing delay to our run and then being very aware we were holding people up at the aid stations we certainly went through a stage of feeling like we had let people down which was hard shake off. Or at least until we saw everyone, and they were so supportive and caring towards us! 

You’ve been sharing your pics and stories in order to inspire others.  What advice would you give to anyone thinking of going out running with their partner?

Don’t make your runs about pace or how far you want to go! Don’t compare to others and just enjoy the time together, explore a new location, take a left instead of a right, take pictures, stop and look around, laugh, smile and most of all enjoy! There are plenty of times to run fast and sometimes we do! Ashley will join me when I’m picking up my pace and sometimes, I’ll jump on the bike if he wants company on his quicker runs but when we run together, we just enjoy it! 

Sometimes it can be daunting running with someone who is naturally faster than and you may try to speed up because of that, remember its easier for them to slow for you.

You’re based in the West Midlands.  Are there any ‘hidden gems’ of running routes that you’re happy to share? What local events would you recommend to our readers?

We have several routes around Ellesmere, Chirk and Llangollen that we would consider “hidden gems”. Running along the canal network is beautiful in all seasons, a little more challenging underfoot in the winter months but beautiful for wildlife. We are also not to far from the Shropshire Hills and the Welsh border so are able to take in a little more elevation should we want to. If anyone is ever in the area and wants to reach out to us or take a look at our Strava you are very welcome to take a nosey! We happily share any of our routes.

As for events in the area, Shrewsbury 10K and Ellesmere 10K are a favourite for shorter distances, Chirk Castle also used to do a free 10K at the end of every month (National Trust getting people active initiative) .

Two of our favourite half’s are also not too far away from here in Conwy on the North Wales Coast, The Conwy Half Marathon normally run in November over the Great Orme and the North Wales Half Marathon which starts on the beach in Conwy and climbs over the mountains back down towards Conwy Castle and the Harbour.

What runs or locations are still on your bucket list?

Fortunately, we completed Paris Marathon in October of this year which was at the top of our “must run” list and we have Berlin Marathon next year which was number two! We do hope to get a few more organised Ultras under our belts, but we are very much if we see it and like it we will have a go! We do hope to complete the Marathon majors at some point, but we aren’t in a rush so to speak.

Got any races coming up soon that you’re looking forward to?  Any goals for the rest of 2021 and 2022?

We have no more races this year, we have a 50km Ultra planned at the start of December but that’s it. Next Year we have Brighton Marathon in April, Berlin Marathon in September and a undecided Ultra hopefully that will slot in between 😊

Finally, how can our readers follow you on your next adventures?

If you would like to reach out to us or see more of what we do, you can find us on most social sites. Some are a little more advanced than others but here are the links:

✨Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/AshleyShelleyApparentlyWeRun

✨Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apparently_we_run/

✨Twitter: https://twitter.com/ApparentlyWeRun

✨Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ApparentlyWeRun/

✨Facebook Group: Apparently We Run 🏃🏻‍♀️🏃🏻‍♂️

✨Blog: https://www.apparentlywerun.co.uk

Thanks, we’ll be sure to check them out!

That’s all for this blog post. We hope you enjoyed ‘meeting’ Ashley and Shelley – we certainly did! If you have any ideas for other people we should talk to, please let us know 👍