so how did the summer ultra go on the
pen llyn. Do you know, I really loved it, just the whole the whole day with the contrast in scenery I love being on the coast to start with and then crossing in land. The Pen Llyn Ultra was my first one hundred mile race, so I didn't really know what to expect time-wise. Well do you know it was very challenging. Yeah it went well and that, I started off a bit too quick, if im being honest. And you know it was the hardest thing I've ever done. and I was just so glad to get through the thing and complete it, it was one of my best achievements you know and was
great to cross the line. personally went incredibly well and was my first ultra. Was there a plan, did you beat the plan, just keep moving, dont stop, eat and beat hugos time. There wasn't really a plan. Overall the race went well, I think any finish without injury is success Im tired, i'm kinda tired, I'm gonna hang in there. It's tough but it's good how's the foot, killing it is it soon as I got on the tarmac in mynytho there there was erm, I've always sailed around the coast on various sailing races and so on. there was a local competitor who was one of the first ultra runners on the Llyn Peninsula. Gordon Hughes he ran another ultra
marathon which is on Holyhead which is called the ring o fire and then I thought you know we got a spectacular area here on the Llyn and it was just fantastic to put an ultra marathon on here. So that was back in 2016, had 47 turn up for the first one, that was just the 75 miler And was initially to show off the Llyn Peninsula. Well my brother-in-law Lucas my cousin
Adam and I all used to live in Kansas City a few years back and some of our
best memories were on the trails running together so since then Adam had moved to
London and Lucas had moved to Denver we had this grandiose idea of running 100
miler together sort of as a way to stay connected
but then as an excuse to reunite on the trails come race day
so anyhow once we all were pot committed to a race it was just a matter of
logistics summertime seemed to work well for everybody and the idea of Lucas and
I travelling to the UK sounded pretty appealing and even adventurous so we
fired up the Run Ultra website and just started ranking races we first had
to find something that we would all qualify for then we had to find
something that for the lack of a better word looked epic you know dramatic scenery challenging
trails or as or as hugh coined beautifully brutal so in the end we
agreed on Pen Llyn two years ago I dropped out of race and
after that I was looking for a sort of a revenge race then I came across Pen Llyn Ultras on the Internet I didn't end up racing it that here next
year I was looking for another challenge 100 mile race my first one and yes
the Pen Llyn came the one I think this this year I hadn't trained as
well as should have done on the previous year but the start of the race in the
morning met up with John and decided to run together and I thought it worked out really well it's funny, we weren't planning on running together but we started talking on the beach at the start line, oh even before you started we were off, we we're still talking
when the race started and going a similar pace if anything we were going going bit too fast so we got to the first checkpoint and we were like way ahead schedule like oh you've gotta remember this is a
hundred miles so just go briefly what the course is, abererch on the beach all
the way the back road going to the backend of clynnog then down and this is
in the middle of the night all the way down towards Trefor after the back of
Trefor mountain i don't know who's that idea was at the start of the 100 miler they should be on trial in The Hague it was horrible so steep and so high I'm gonna
be banged my head on the moon, nearly at the checkpoint, see you later down through nant gwrtheyrn all the way down in to pwllheli, along the coastal path then they've got llanbedrog, abersorch, cilan, rhiw, aberdaron, all the way around porth colmon, ty coch, the big vert back
up nant gwrtheyrn, then down through llithfaen in to pwllheli and along
the beach back home, 100 miles, no car yeah it was so lucky, so much history on the llyn, its weaving in and out just like the course does you've got for instance the tin man which is on the headland of llanbedrog he's overlooking and protecting the llyn peninsula that's been up several hundred years it's also a place where we place a honesty book so these are normally situated where the competitor stops and then they can turn
out take a look take a breath and so on uwchmynydd for the 75 and the hundreds this is when they've done a good bit of mileage 75s
will have done at least 30 miles the hundreds will be coming up to about 50
60 miles, uwchmynydd itself looks over at ynys enlli ynys enlli it is a tiny island in the irish sea and this is where all the pilgrims used to walk from hollywell all
the way towards the Llyn Peninsula, 134 miles, they used to go there and finish the pilgrimige on Ynys Enlli you've also got a bit of history, it's there it's the famous pub ty coch up on the beach this is fantastic is also a place where a lot of the runners
have a DNF do not finish because they'll stop the weather's out we've got a
little microclimate here on the Llyn Peninsula they'll just stop and have a pint but if
they carry on they'll go past the beautiful little church which is st.
Beuno this is where the pilgrimage the pilgrims stop along the way, its about 7th century so yeah this beautiful history sites and so on as well as you know the historic folklore books such as you know the stories are mabinogi up in the Llithfaen mountains stuff so yeah it's great first came across the Pen Llyn ultra when I signed up for the 50-mile version last
year it seemed like an obvious choice for me to sign up to because i love
running coastal trails back home in Pembrokeshire because all three races go the same way to the first ten miles the first ten miles are fairly familiar to
me there's quite fast and flat apart from the climb up llanbedrog steps
which are a bit of a slog after that the course splits in two at abersoch everyone doing alright, yeah good you, good the Cilan Headland provides some of
most beautiful views of the race it's a very tough section but you got stunning
views across to Snowdonia and the Bay of Cardigan my goal go in and was to get
under 15 hours never quite know with ultras but my training had gone really well
and I also have some very pleasing race results in the run ups I was pretty
confident I think thats my favourite bit, going over Garn Fadryn, feels so remote and wild and a nice big descent before you hit the coast again the north coast is just beautiful, it was pretty misty on the day, was really atmospheric wasn't it did it lift for you the mist
were you coming down from llithfaen before it lifted we were further on from that, you were weren't you, it was just beautiful, running along the beach but not being able to see felt really wild and like a proper adventure I start the race really fast and Idid so on this one, I had planned to run with an Irish guy called Gabhoain, a really nice guy he wasn't having a very good day so he fell behind quite early and I ended up running with 3 other guys. American guys Brady and Adam from the
United States and one guy from Ireland called Robert we had a very nice pace
and when the Sun came up when he came speeding through pwllheli it was a very nice moment
seeing the Sun come up seeing the ocean super flat without any winds I was just
seeing how long I could keep up the really nice pace and I had to let them
go about 100 the kilometers I'm still having fun I knew I was gonna
finish the race just had to let them go because they were too fast let's see
well we pushed off at 11 p.m. I loved that you know temperatures were cooler
and for whatever reason running at night is much easier at the beginning of a
race as opposed to the end and then my cousin Adam and I we set off
together and found our pace I had my GPX watch rollin which was the first time I
was wearing it so it was really nice to have that and I quickly realize it was
very very important to have and away we went so Adam and I ran for the first
about 45 miles together which you know looking back felt like a blip in time it
was Adams first 100-mile race and our plan was to try to stick together for at
least the first checkpoint but he was an absolute rock star and we pounded it out
for about eight hours together before he dropped back a touch I'll tell you what
we had so much fun it was such a joy running together and it's exactly why we
signed up and it's certainly an experience that we both will cherish he
was able to finish in under 24 hours so the whole thing was pretty special
anyhow after having dropped back I stuck with Martin and Rob they were also
running with us along the way and they're both great runners and couldn't
be nicer guys so I stuck with them till about mile 65 or 70 and and when you're
with people for that amount of time and you're overcoming all these obstacles
it's it's pretty cool it's a it's you know I think the trail running community
couldn't be nicer yet tough-as-nails and really the first two-thirds of the
race for all of us I think had almost this serendipitous camaraderie between
us keeps your mind away from feeling tired feeling bored which was just
really perfect but then after that I was on my own and I have to say so much of
why I run ultras is the mental physical and emotional state that ensues at these
moments you get to a point where everything just simplifies you're only
thinking about your basic needs and your senses are amplified anymore we live in
this world of a thousand distractions coming at you from every angle and in
these solitary moments late in a race I find myself just thinking about that
next step we're listening to the rhythm of my exhausted breath we're even
feeling the strain of my body as I'm slowly tugging along and I love it I truly love it certainly not every moment but I love being a place where there's only one
objective which is to finish the race and in doing so I think I've become a
better version of myself I think all ultra runners at some point become a
better version of themselves you know no ego no judgment no distractions just a
single purpose and with that I feel like you know you gain perspective and
gratitude and you recognize beauty and possibility, it's truly why I run the one of my best memories of the entire race was finishing obviously but certainly the memory of finishing and falling to my
girlfriends arms was top notch the first like 20 miles or so the race
was just very fun coming to lanbedrog I was feeling really good it was
still it was kind of a bit of an edgy time because I was still trying to
find that pace there's a lot of twoing and throwing feeling the pressure a little bit and just settle in to your own rhythym but I was very happy to
see that the tide was out because when I did that section in the winter ultra the
tide is right in and had to wade through water and I actually fell and I was
swimming and I was about four miles in to a 35 mile race you're soaking wet in
November I was very happy this time i don't think I even got my feet
wet and yeah it's a good part of the race it's really beautiful there and
it's such a nice morning as well Yeh it was my first one and hopefully there are many more to come How long have you been running, near a year now, go back 8 months or so, i never would have thought i'd be doing an ultra marathon I didn't like doing that bit on training runs, that long bit of tarmac, hit some walls there eh, you've only got a bit of tarmac here then through the fields I like the bit from ty coch to llithfaen but its a long way to go you're nearly half way, yeah, enjoy it, all the best, catch up with you later, hwyl any hard parts physically or emotionally in the race, can i say the whole thing can I say the whole thing, yeah, I hit a hell of a wall half way through then coming up through pystyll i was just slogging along and that luckily other runners from the club came along from behind and that gave me a bit of a pickup to go on to nant and i pushed through to the end yeah just did you stick with em all
don't push on a bit, they left me went on by with a lad from away and
you know you're just nice to run with some one you know I just gave me a
push to the ends be honest there wasn't really a plan to be honest
because I've been doing loads of short fell races for four or five miles and
the most i would have run is maybe twelve miles I didn't really trained
specifically for the distance and before and I wasn't
nervous at all because I had no expectations of myself when I went into
the race and then I just started running you know chatting away with some of the
other competitors people I knew and it just went that way and then by the time
I got abersoch I was on my own you know the rest for the 40-odd miles to go all
right yeah i was with you at llanbedrog that well
yeah those three of yes yeah Rory was doing the 75 and then so just
after abersoch just a few miles in yes myself yeah so I could see huw
occasionally in the distance maybe a mile or so behind yeah so I always knew
he was there somewhere yeah so there's no real let up for me
I never knew how far away somebody was behind me until maybe I got to pwllheli
just outside four or five miles outside of pwllheli and a couple of friends who
were on there bikes and seen huw who was in second place and told me about a mile or so behind me 20 minutes whatever so I was quite happy but then
you know I hit the sand was is it called after abererch on the abererch beach
pass the train station down to the beach and I kind of used every last ounce of
energy running along the beach and after I had a really bad moments and
whistling sands I was like basically dead on my feet yeah yeah wife wasn't happy
and she said to my daughter if he's like this when we got to ty coch then she
said well I'll pull him out well then fair play to John like he got
me through whistlign sands bit well was there I got a second wind
yeah yeah was just kept going in with another thing I think maybe the right
was we we didn't stop no no we both got tired at certain points but we kept
going there we did it to walk yeah definitely I think we both help each
other yeah got a second wind you know second wind when I was tiring yeah and it
was like was pulling me on and it really worked well dove tailed together my plan was on the day was it because it was my third and final 75 mile
race I all wanted to do was finish the race so I had no plans of trying to beat
my time were nothing like last I know thoughts of just finish the race in any
way like John said one morning of the race we just got together, ran it together I think if I was running it on my own I think I might have propper struggled because I
had not trained enough for this to be fair on last year but thanks to John like yeah you kept seeing you kept saying oh I'm not looking for time look at the
time All the way through saying that you know I'm just gonna finish it and get to Aberdaron on with this much time to spare you know for the cut off then
I'll be okay okay well that was the plan to get to Aberdaron basically was just like I think we were
like a good couple of hours getting in the bank getting to Aberdaron I thought
that's it happy yes we had that time in the bank so when we were getting through
the tough bits from Aberdaron right through to whistling sands along to ty coch we knew if I made it to ty coch them so there's only one way home and
then I was it like good effort everyone da iawn, good effort dai iawn, good effort, thanks for your support, no problem
enjoy the rest I'll see out there hardest part then, the last mile
no that was okay because you can you can see the finish and think even
though it it's odd with perspective because never seems like getting any
closer yeah but you eventually get that but the
hardest part is probably llithfaen to pwllheli toughest part for me is going down
from nant gwrtheyrn changing to my road shoes I'm just getting used to the terrain
back on tarmac I'm going past y fic in llithfaen where i spend most of my time, that was physically the toughest yes the tarmac is just brutal on your legs
after doing 35 miles yeah any mental sticky situations at the end
about 5 miles, two lads infront, just mentally preparing myself to try and pass them got them in the end the hardest part was probably the last mile, just see the finish line, it was just there, but still so far away everything felt so heavy at the time, coming across the finish line was just brilliant the most difficult part of the course to
me was I think the part after Aberdaron had really narrow trails and
they were but a foot deep and a couple of inches wide it's hard to even walk on
I was running alone at this point and well I guess I lost a lot of time there
still its place worth visiting though, the views were spectacular I was camping out inside my car before the race on the night before I locked my keys in wind was
really picking up and I did look forward to sleeping outside that night so I
did what i had to do I smashed my window after that of course I had to clean out all
the glass took me while but I had a great sleep after that in ultra it's often the
same you just have to make some sacrifices to get a good result in this
case it just was really for my car but good for my race because you look at
your watch what I know how far to go and you know it's on the road and that
might suit different people but I found it really difficult from on the road
keeping upright almost you know not hunching over and yeah different style
to the shorter Mountain routes and trails you're used to yeah definitely I was
quite happy when we hit steeper ground up or down because my you said you did
you enjoyed and you did pretty good section between pystyll and nant gwrtheyrn yeah the downhill section through the
woods there yes I remember going there when I was a kid so I
that was fast I think you know you know if you're looking at strava then you'll
see I'm bombing it down there and then the climb from the beach to the cafe i ran
that I dont know why, i had a burst of energy for some reason and then I walk I thought
I'd be conservative and I wolked you know the zig zags up saw my family my brother
my sister my mum they gave me some snacks and they tried to walk with me but couldn't keep pace with me I know that you know there's a really
good support crew at the top of nant gwrtheyrn just before llithfaen and they you know had some food whatever and I felt good you know it felt so right
and then on my own then until huws house know amazing of what they were doing
gordon hughes 2016 won it raymond cassidy won it in 2017 for
doing his first ultra, yeh cass big wave at the back Huge Thomas took the mick out with him and how ugly it was so gave it to him in 2018 Becky's just smashed the 75 for the first time for the Llyn Stryders she can have this in the living room how am I going to take this on the piss this afternoon you took 3 hours off your time from last year, everything went well then just keep moving, dont stop, eat, beat hugos time after that because that's the only thing
I want to those finish it yeah my plan cuz Vikki it the
previous year I should have did 23 and a half you think so I felt really
pressured because it's oh god she's only done it with half an hour to spare Hugo
only done it with an hour to spare and he keeps on telling me how hard it
was so he you know it seeing or saying well it's hard it's hard and I thought
God was really panicking that we weren't gonna make it so I said to vikki you
know just finish it do it if we did a minute and the hugo's time I'd be happy
yeah so did like a little plan and where she'd be in each checkpoint by the time we got to porth colmon and I had one hour and a half in the bank
then I knew that maybe so it was sorted fantastic I think we did faster from Aberdaron than what we did to Aberdaron so that second half and was a negative split yeah and think
yeah look it's so easy on the way there yeah we were like people passing us and
I'm just enjoying it and I'm from Aberdaron to uwchmynydd I think we started
passing one or two and then by the time we got to porth colmon me and vikki passed quite a few there and then any of them it's just
get to ty coch and just get home when we got to ty coch we had done it
great it was hard though, and you were only half an hour behind cass and john I think in the end, did you know that, no
no no I just kept on asking if they were together and we were and Chris came in
this with a little bit and he was looking at the phone I didn't look where
anyone was i didnt even look at my watch didn't put it on just went with how we
felt and he said they are still together you know not far and checking people
behind this as well but I didn't think we'd be so close to them was quite chuffed with that if it wasn't for blisters though from huws house I think who the finished
earlier but by then anytime I was hitting the floor it was just like he
could just feel something bursting, that was hard, managing the pain but otherwise I think we ran from nant gwrtheyrn to huws house
all the way I'll be thinking about this for a long time I thought well you
get to ty coch I'm gonna have a shandy you said the same thing, brilliant, we'll have a shandy, better stick to a half, it was lovely wasn't it, it was fantastic yeah he's thinking drinking just water
throughout and then I mean I had salts in my water, electrolytes we we spoke about having a shandy
it's like a little motivator as well there like John was saying we were
getting a bit too relaxed then Gareth Davies and he was
marshalling there and a thing Iasked him there was know how far becky was behind us, and he said, about half an hour, i said to john, you know we need to get going because his face with Gareth told him that, haha alright we got to go, knocked back the shandy a the targets between 12 to 13
hours and i did it in 10 hours and sixteen minutes and I was quite impressed to be honest to
myself I think I've got the bug today so and the day after i entered another ultra as well as we hit uwchmynydd I was actually
starting to feel quite bad I was struggling to keep up with Lee at this
point and but I knew I just I knew I needed to kind of push on and be by
myself I get to a point when I'm running where I just want to be alone part of
the reason I love running and just having that space so I kind of drove
forward a little bit and as soon as I was by myself I just got a second wind
and I was feeling really good again and then actually I think I had a really
good 15 miles where I felt very strong and I was pushing quite hard and I was
hurting at this point but still really enjoying myself for me I kind of between up to Ty Coch I
was feeling quite good and I was really pushing it and I think I put quite a lot
of distance between me and the next runner on that section coming into Ty Coch
and then I was leaving there i just felt terrible and I left the check point, ran along the beach a bit and I got out of sight and I just had a
little moment where I almost sat down and I was walking for a bit in a few
minutes I gave myself a good talking-to and then to Nant Gwrtheyrn and I was
feeling pretty good and and I had I had I had this idea that once I was on the
road it's just gonna be easy and I'd be almost there and the road to section was
just pure hell the whole way and as soon as I hit the road my feet started to
really really hurt they've been hurting a lot anyway but on the hard surface
they've got got really battered and I got some pretty nasty blisters on that
section so by the end I was I felt terrible and mentally it was really hard
as well because I think you think you're so close to anything in reality you've
still got 15 miles to go and so yeah it's probably apologized all the lovely
people who were giving me loads of support and I think I just scowled at everyone
that went past me at that point I was almost in tears by the last checkpoint
and then as you come onto the beach for that last mile or kilometer along the
beach that was so painful because you could see the flags in the distance and
they just didn't seem to be getting any closer and I was just looking at my feet
and counting to a hundred and then I look up and there's still the sea really
closer but that was the only way i could get through it i'd lose you in that one mate, not a good idea to fall in that one that would have been an early finish to the race if i had lost you in that hole quite a few inspirational people, well you're all inspirational there are quite a few out there this year that have really impressed us, i'd like paul watts and steve harris to come up for all of you that don't know, paul is a blind runner and steve harris was kindly his guide runner this weekend paul can you just say how many marathons you've done, er 350 and how many ultras have you done, 18 and that was 5 this year there we go and lightUpU would like
the other side if you would like to give you some fantastical prizes and so on
and also for steve harris as well, big round of applause yeah there was really good very very
good I know it was really funny cuz one it
seemed at once he once cass got a sniff and the fact that he was gonna beat the
time ehe had done last year was like, this is it we're going to do it, you were determined then, i couldn't actually believe the time we got, it was 18 hours something
yeah and i took two hours of of last time i could not believe it, as i said, i hadn't trained enough all the guys were doing the recces and that and i missed quite a few of them and I just like I said just want to just get the
race done don't look for the time the time was a bonus yeah but on the whole
there I mean I think its one of the best races out there it's only going to get bigger when we got to nant gwrtheyrn that was when we realised we could really walk in and beat the time, but we pushed each other we run to that bridge over there, then we'll walk a bit, then run then walk, kept going that way, oh it was really good, us two running together was really really good on the final bit we started passing some of the 50 competitors, we were getting down to llyn idwal and passing three or four and then, getting on the final bit, the beach
we passed another 3 or 4 didn't we, we did really well, very good, it's good experience well yeah
yes it's nice some runners continue on in to the night da iawn, good effort, 41, fantastic effort it's alright good effort everyone, thanks pal, how you all feeling, ruined one black tea, one coffee da iwan Llyr, thats not for him Ihope getting all the marshals together so
last year the date was 23rd June we opened got lots of people booking
straight away and then it became apparent over my over supper one that
you think that this is my wife's birth date which was the 23rd of June now you
normally get a compulsory list of things that you need to bring for an
ultramarathon and last year I added the birthday card for my wife because my
house is also checkpoint and it's open from 11 o'clock in the morning till 10
past 2:00 in the morning the following day so my wife was there so she had 147
birthday cards but that's one of the reasons why it's on the 29th this year
and I'm taking her out for lunch on Saturday
