Preparing for the Cape Wrath Ultra

Note: this post contains Amazon affiliate links

Cape Wrath Ultra is an epic adventure race covering 250 miles of the North Western Highlands of Scotland, starting in Fort William and finishing at the iconic Cape Wrath Lighthouse on the most Northwesterly point of mainland Scotland. It’s been on my bucket list for many years (I think I first heard of the race some time in 2018) and I learned a lot about it by volunteering on the event team first in 2023 and then again in 2024 as I unfortunately had to make a late deferral after injuring my hip in March. This year I am fully trained, healthy and ready to finally take my spot on the starting line in just a few days time.

Unlike many other races we have done, the Cape Wrath Ultra is different in that it’s a multi-day stage race. The course consists of 8 separate stages, stopping each night at an overnight camp. No individual crew is allowed and all of my gear for the week must fit in to a standard issue 79 litre, dry bag with a 20kg weight limit, or carried/worn on the first day. The dry bag is transported from the start of each day to the next camp with the event team, and should be there when I arrive. Compared to a continuous point-to-point race, where you can travel relatively light and rely on regular crew or CP stops for resupply, or a Backyard Ultra where you have access to your own supplies every hour for Cape Wrath I must be self-sufficient for up to 45 miles, it requires quite a different approach and a lot more thought! Here are some notes on how I prepared for the race. Hopefully anyone planning to enter CWU or similar multi-day races in future will find it interesting and useful.

Gear

An extensive list of mandatory and recommended kit is provided by the organisers, Ourea Events. My starting point was to transfer every item on the kit list onto a spreadsheet and note which of my existing running gear I would use, and which I would have to purchase. In the end (aside from replacing/updating some worn-out “consumable” items such as socks, shoes and first aid kit), the only items I bought specially for the race were:

• The mandatory drybag (Ortlieb PS490 79L) – I have a love/hate relationship with this after packing! It would be much nicer if they chose something which was less tube-shaped. Anyway everyone is in the same boat…
• Ultimate Direction Adventure Vest 6.0 – a little bit of an upgrade to my previous 15L pack, this has 17L of capacity for the additional mandatory kit items I would need to carry and many more accessible pockets for food. I planned to use it with a 2L bladder plus a 500ml soft flask which I can use if I need to refill from streams on the longer days.
• OMM Halo Plus jacket – my previous jackets were either too heavyweight (proper winter waterproofs) or had cutouts which meant they don’t meet Ourea’s requirements. Having bought it last Spring, I’ve worn and carried it many times in all conditions and totally recommend it as a great lightweight hill running waterproof. It needs to be paired with a warm midlayer on cold days though as it is only a waterproof shell and doesn’t have any insulation.
• Evadict trail running waterproof trousers – a good upgrade over my “walking” waterproofs, with longer calf zips and stretchy knee sections so they are easy to put on when needed but don’t impede running. Very lightweight and surprisingly warm, having worn them over shorts in 0C conditions at Rasselbock Backyard Ultra 2025.
• A new fleece midlayer (less bulky than my own, as this must be carried at all times on the course) – also bought ready for last year’s race and have worn it plenty since then.
• A North Face Thermoball hooded jacket – this is a requirement to be carried in cold weather. My usual insulated jacket is too bulky, and I’ll need it to be in my dry bag to wear in camp anyway. Fortunately, I was able to pick this up on Vinted for £20 – can’t beat a good bargain 😁

Next I had to decide how many spare bits of clothing I should take. In the end I decided on a compromise between comfort, space/weight and flexibility. I have 4 pairs of socks and runderwear (so a fresh pair every 2 days), 2 pairs of shorts, 2 pairs of Salomon Sense Ride 5 shoes (one new and one with a few hundred miles of wear), 3 tech shirts and a vest, and 3 base layers of varying thickness.

For my camp kit in addition to all the mandatory stuff (sleeping bag, midge net, first aid kit, washing kit etc.) I am taking the relative luxury of an inflatable sleeping mat, a full change of clothes to wear in camp, a pair of long-sleeved pyjamas, a solar charging power bank and some line and clothes pegs so I have a chance of drying my kit. The drying tent that was provided last year will not be available, so this could be the difference between putting on wet kit in the morning, or having it dry(ish) 🤞 I’ve also brought a smaller drybag which I’ll use to store any wet or worn kit, seal it up and stuff it into the bottom of the bag to keep the festering to a minimum…

The weather seems forecast to be good (maybe even too hot!) for the first 4 or 5 days of the race, so hopefully I have everything I need to stay warm, dry and comfortable both on the trail and in camp!

The next stage was to weigh all my items and add the weights to the spreadsheet. Including food (more on that later), I expected to have a bit over 18kg in the drybag, and around 3kg in my pack. During the week the drybag should get lighter as I eat my way through the nearly 6kg of food in it!

When it comes to packing I have arranged items into smaller drawstring bags. The drybag is basically a long tube, which is annoying as it makes it impossible to reach items at the bottom without having to take everything else out first. So the packing order is not that important, as I’ll have to do a full unpack and repack every day to access all my gear anyway. With a bit of careful squeezing and shaping, everything made it in to the bag in the end! The main thing that really helped saving space was to roll my clothes before stuffing them into the drawstring bags – apparently it helps get all the air pockets out. Anyway, I can say it certainly helped and I estimate it saved about 25% of the volume of my clothes 😮 There is a helpful guide to space-saving packing here: https://www.cabinzero.com/blogs/packing-tips/how-to-roll-clothes-for-packing 👀 After popping in a few extra items (since I had the space and the weight available), I weighed in at 19.9kg… hope my scales are accurate!

Food

Although I wrote that runners need to be self-sufficient, that only extends to food while out on the course. In camp, I will be served breakfast, dinner and the legendary afternoon soup and chips (for those fast enough to make it back before dinner time). Having experienced camp life as a volunteer for the last two years, I can say that the catering is truly excellent in both quality and quantity. In fact, I put on weight during my two volunteering weeks – not sure that will happen when I have to run 250 miles along the way, but we will see 🤣

To plan the food I was going to take I made another spreadsheet with the various things that I know I like to eat during a race – KMC energy drink and gels, home-made protein cookies, and a mixture of other savoury and sweet snacks and “real food” such as babybel cheese, crackers, nuts and dried fruit. I know from practicing on long runs that I tend to eat more substantial items when hiking uphill, so I checked the course description and planned for one cookie per major climb! For the shorter days (1 & 8) I will take 1L of KMC drink, increased to 1.5L if hot and 2L for the remaining days, to be supplemented by water from streams as needed (I have packed chlorine tablets if needed).

I added data for the weight and calories per serving of each food item and then adjusted the quantities to hit around 250 kcal per hour, based on the finishing time of a front-to-mid-pack runner from last year’s results. That’s actually quite a bit more than I’d eat even on a 100 miler, but I won’t have the luxury of several days of recovery, I’ll need to run again the next day so I’m aiming to take on a bit more energy and nutrients if I can!

In total I have around 6kg of race food (plus water which will be provided on site), totalling about 14,000kcal. That works out as 2.4kcal per gram, which is fairly efficient given that “pure” carbohydrates give you 4kcal per gram 🤔

All of the food is divided up into ziplock bags, one for each day, so all I need to do at the end of the day is removed any empty packets / surplus food from my bag and repack with the next day’s provisions – easy!

One final note about food, Ourea’s catering is plant-based (either vegetarian or vegan). Of course their menus are designed to provide plenty of protein and all the micronutrients that the body needs, but I have snuck in a few bags of beef jerky to provide a bit of a reward at the end of the day. I’ve also packed some protein powder and a mixer flask so I can have a quick protein shake to kick-start recovery at the end of each day’s running. The other “treat” item I’ve put in is a hip-flask full of whisky, which I plan to take in my pack on the final day to be opened when I reach the lighthouse!

Pacing

The individual stages of the Cape Wrath Ultra are not actually that long (relatively speaking 🤣 ). The longest day is 45 miles and there are three days which are less than a marathon. My training has gone well, I feel in good shape and I fully intend to come and “race”, rather than go steadily and treat it as an “experience”. I have done plenty of running on varied Scottish terrain so I know what to expect on most parts of the course, and have a good idea of the pace I can maintain both on and off trail. The big unknown is how well I can recover and go again the next day… that I’ll only find out as the cumulative fatigue sets in on day 2 or 3!

To plan out the race, I first plotted out the route on Strava, based on the 2022 route map which I was given during my first year as a volunteer. Once the final route GPX and guidance was published I went over them and made a few minor corrections, but broadly the route is unchanged. I’ll sync these routes to my Garmin as my primary navigation aid (along with the official printed map and the Avenza digital map). I haven’t done any official recces, but have experience on a short distance each way out of camp from runs and walks over the last few years, although I estimate that’s only about 10% of the route!

I then split each day up into sections (yet another spreadsheet – are you getting the hang of my strategy yet?) and read off the distances to each major waypoint (either the top of a climb, a checkpoint or other major feature). I pored over the map, exhaustively watched Youtube footage from previous years, race reports and even Strava cadence data from past participants to identify which bits of terrain were most runnable and walkable. For each segment I worked out a target pace (in minutes per mile) based on a moderate effort, what I would typically expect to do on a 100k race. Hopefully that’s a good balance between pushing fast enough to be competitive, but without blowing up and/or doing too much damage to recover each day.

I added them all up to give me expected times at each location, and total times for each day. In total this puts me at an estimated finish time of around 50 hours… based on previous years that would typically put me in the top 3 or 5, so that’s in the right ballpark as an “if everything goes to plan” goal. I am sure there are some speedy runners who are looking to go much faster (looking at you, Marcus Scotney 👀) so I will focus on the time goal firstly, and secondly managing my effort enough that I am still in a state to run properly right up to the final day. Whether that’s possible or not there’s only one way to find out, but it wouldn’t be a good goal if it was a certainty! I’ll report back in a couple of weeks and let you all know 🤩

The race tracking page is now live: https://live.opentracking.co.uk/capewrathultra25/ where you’ll be able to follow my progress over the week – I have race number 12. There will also be live video feeds from the start and finish of each day, and (not yet enabled) the “Ultra Mail” feature which means you can write me messages that will be printed out at the end of every day. I’m looking forward to reading them 🙏