While depressed and recovering from a nasty climbing fall back in April¹, I impulsively entered an ultra-marathon - the Snowdon UTS 50km. I barely consider myself a runner, let alone a marathon runner, so I saw this as a good personal challenge, and a bit of motivation to get back into the outdoors after my injury. And with the event village and starting line a convenient 15 minute walk from my house, logistical preparation would be reasonably straightforward.

I managed a couple of longer training runs in the lead up to the day (up to 35km), but simply wasn’t able to dedicate the time to training enough that I would feel confident on the day. So I went into the race feeling a little apprehensive. But I managed to finish without too much trouble. On a run like this, only the elites will actually run the entire way; the vast majority end up walking the steep bits, and only running on the flat and downhill sections. Adopting this strategy made things a bit more manageable - it’s mostly a hike, with some running interspersed.

The event catering was amazing - there were three supremely well equipped rest stops along the route. When I reached the first stop, I immediately realised that I needn’t have brought any of my own food, nor was there any need to be carrying 2 litres of water.

The best part of the day was in the evening; as the event was so close to my house, I was in no rush to get home. Instead, I had a great time relaxing in the sun, drinking beer and eating pizza, chatting to people, and clapping all of the remaining runners across the finish line.