Entering My First UltraMarathon

You know I like running? And long walks? Well, Here’s A Thing some of you will already know.

You may remember, back in December 2019, I’d come out of a load of post-redundancy travel and I was plotting out what I’d like to achieve in the coming year or two, in terms of hobbies, interests, career, and personal development. Bad time to be planning that, but we didn’t know!!

Well, it’s only taken me five years but one of the less likely and more optimistic ones may well be coming to pass. I recently signed up for an ultramarathon!

Image of someone running towards the camera through some countryside - a vaguely defined earthen path across some moorland. It's a sunny day and the sky is clear. The person running has long purple hair that's flowing behind them. They have a khaki-coloured t-shirt, a dark skort with stars, and capri-length blue leggings with a foot motif. They are also barefoot.
Me running over the moors on part of the nearby Calderdale Way, where the Ultra will take place.

An ultramarathon is any organised race that’s further than a marathon (26 and a bit miles). So when people talk about Ultras, they could mean a 27-30 mile race, or they could mean something over 200 miles and several days. The two are very different, as you can imagine.

So. Back when I was Hiking Across Great Britain in 2019, we walked the length of the Pennine Way. This is the connected trail of footpaths that runs along the northern ‘spine’ of England, just over 250 miles long in something that doesn’t even approximate a straight line. Anyway, every year there’s an UltraMarathon along it called The Spine Race; the standard one is held in Winter (January) but there’s a less prestigious summer variant. On our second-to-last day on the Pennine Way, we were overtaken by the people who’d end up finishing in the top three of the summer race. To put this into context, we took 16-17 days to hike it end-to-end; the winner jogged it in 78 hours, or just over 3 days. I knew Ultras existed, of course, but this was the first time I really noticed what they were or appreciated them. And over time I became a lot more curious about them – and unusually I think, it wasn’t the distance that put me off, more the time.

Moorlands covered in mist. Hiking into the fog, so we see only their backs, are three hikers, mostly wrapped up warm, with hiking poles and large backpacks.
The Cheviots section of the Pennine Way, June 2019. June! JUNE!!!!!

I’m not doing that one, by the way, because that’s just ridiculous.

Anyway. Fast forward to 2024. I’m a member of an online running group (as in, a running club that meet online, not a club that run online. Although….), called Queer Runnings, it’s a group of Queers who like running, none of this is rocket science, I know, but anyway, many of them are people who like to push themselves (and each other), and they’re also a very affirming and validating bunch. So when I said maybe one day I’d like to do an ultra but I’m worried about whether I could handle it, bearing in mind the longest race I’ve officially run for was a half marathon back in 1992, they pointed out that if I can walk across Great Britain, I can do an ultramarathon. Their logic was, honestly once you get beyond marathon distance, it gets far less externally competitive and it’s not that there’s no shame in walking, indeed rather it becomes practically obligatory anyway, so you’ll be fine.

I did a small bit of research, out of curiosity, and it turns out there’s a regular one close to where I currently live. There’s a defined and signposted long-distance footpath nearby – The Calderdale Way. I’ll probably do a specific blog post on it this year, once I’ve walked it all. It’s about 50 miles long, and loops around the edge of the Calderdale Metropolitan Borough, mainly up and down hills. Because if Calderdale is anything, it’s not flat. The total ascent of the route is about 2,600m & some of the paths are particularly steep (1-in-10). So it’s certainly a challenging route to hike.

Landscape vista shot. A vaguely defined earthen path across some moorland. It's a sunny day and the sky is clear. There's a fence on the far left.
Open view of the moorlands and the Calderdale Way “footpath”.

For the last couple of years, at the end of April, there’s been a run organised along it. The run comes in two flavours: the full 50 mile version starting and finishing in Heptonstall (noted for being the last resting place of Sylvia Plath), or a shorter 30-mile that starts in Brighouse. When I looked into the race in more detail I noted something. All ultramarathons have a cut-off time, slower than which they yoink you out of the race. The cut-off time for this one is 17 hours for the 50 mile version, which makes the slowest average speed necessary to complete it less than my normal average walking pace. Even in the hills.

I mentioned all this to the Queer Runnings chat group, and they suggested, nay insisted, that I do the 50 mile one, mainly for the reason that because of my hiking background, they didn’t think the 30 mile version would actually be much of a challenge for me, and if I were going to one, I might as well do one that I won’t feel underwhelmed by. In as much as traipsing 30 miles up and down a load of hills can be described as underwhelming.

View in a late summer evening across the hills of Calderdale. They're mostly green and divided by hedges into fields. In the midground is an old mill building with a couple of tall chimneys. In the foreground are trees and bushes. The sense is of rolling, but steep, hills.
Some of the Calderdale Way is like this – rolling farmland. Some of it is bleak moorland. All of it is as flat as this image demonstrates.

So I signed up. At the time of doing so, that gave me four months to prepare. From where I live I have a regular 5.3km looped jog along country lanes, and that isn’t bad training actually, as it does involve hills of a similar vibe to those the ultra goes over. I just need to do more of them in succession I think. In any case the running group has training plans for every eventuality, including one specifically called ‘Your First 50 Miler’, so hopefully that’ll work out for me just fine over the next few months. Interestingly, about 80% of the plan so far seems to be ‘run for an hour and a bit, but slowly’, and I’ve always found that a but hard because in my brain I just want to set off as fast as possible, because I … can (?), and I feel kind of frustrated if I do anything slowly, including walking.

The rules of the race say there’s some obligatory kit (including waterproof trousers, a whistle, and a paper map), which all means I will have to run with a small backpack, and I’ve never been very good at that, because of balance issues, but I’ve got time to get used to it.

I do feel it’s achievable, & what would be the point of doing something easy, if I’m going to do it at all. Though I don’t imagine I’ll in any way look or feel as calm and chill as I often do when running. And no, before you ask, I’m not doing it barefoot – definitely too much gravel and twig. Indeed I recently bought some proper trail-running shoes partly with this race in mind.

Top-down view of a pair of legs that end in trail running shoes (kind of a gone-off green). They're on a pavement. The legs are seen in stripey colourful socks, leggings with a foot motif that end just below the knee, and a plain skort.
My trail running shoes, being worn. A very rare pic of me not barefoot!

I’ll keep you informed how I get on!

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