Longmynd Hike 6th/7th October

I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth but am still alive and kicking.

This weekend saw me in Shropshire for the Longmynd Hike. The final race of the Montrail Ultra Race series consisting of 50miles and 8,000 feet through the Shropshire Hills.

The route is based on 17 check points with navigation between them up to the individual. This is fine in the daylight but gets a little more interesting as night falls! The race starts at 1:00pm on the Saturday and has a cut-off of 24 hours. The rules also require that participants are grouped into threes after nightfall so the pressure is on to get as far round the course as possible before being grouped.

The race starts fairly brutally with two of the eight peaks one after the other and then a long drag uphill to checkpoints 4 and 5. By 20 miles I was having serious doubts over whether I could finish and the prosect of my first DNF loomed heavy. I took a break at Bank Farm aid station (22 miles) and got my head together and set off with a couple of guys who knew the route and were running at my pace. This proved to be my best decision of the race and we stayed together right through to the end.

We managed to keep the pace up and walked the ups and ran the flats and downs. The weather was perfect and the ground was dry underfoot. By the final peak (Ragleth Hill at mile 48) I was pretty much done but the welcome lights of the finish below kept me going and we crossed the line in 12 hours 15 mins. Results aren’t posted yet but I think we probably managed about 60th out of 463 starters. The race was won in a new record of 7hrs 51 mins by a local runner.

This is a fantastically well organised event, great, friendly atmosphere but not to be underestimated – there’s a lot of hills in Shropshire!

Hopefully this will give me the impetus I need to keep the miles going for the WHW race next year.