National 3 Peaks Ultra

What was the event? 

I did the National 3 Peaks Ultra. It was billed as a challenge and not a race which is why it appealed to me because with something that size I didn’t want the added stress of racing elite athletes. I just wanted the challenge to get to the end. It kicked off at Ben Nevis then we ran/walked to Scafell then from Scafell Pike we walked/crawled up and down Snowdon, and that was it. 

On paper, it was all very easy and in theory, it was all very doable which is why I did it. My distance was 230 miles and it was completely different to anything I’d done before. It’s the furthest I’ve ever been but by the end of it all, I had to show for it was a cold sore. I didn’t have any injuries because they gave us really reasonable cut-offs so I was able to do a lot of self-preservation to make sure I got to the end. 

I expected National 3 Peaks Ultra to be a lot harder when I originally signed up. I was expecting single digits in the number of days we were going to be given to get to the end. Originally you had to do 60 miles a day which I thought was quite doable if you look after yourself in terms of sleep and calories. There’s no reason why an ultra runner with some experience wouldn’t be able to do it. When we were told close to the event that we were given 10 days, that meant 40 miles a day and that was doable. Then I was confident and excited going into it. 

What was your motivation for doing it?  

I wanted to do the National 3 Peaks Ultra. There are a lot of people that have done the three peaks, but not many that have done the distances in between each event and that’s what appealed to me. I was confident that I’d get the chance with an event hosting it as opposed to doing it as a solo event. It was the challenge of the three peaks and everything in between that appealed to me, but it wasn’t the most pleasant journey and it didn’t turn out to be exactly how I envisaged.