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September 24, 2026,
by Pete
Ultra running is really hard. There’s a healthy sense of self deprecation in the community, and laughing at memes that characterise the absurdities of the sport is good. But there’s also a reality that even if you do power hike and poop in the woods you’re still doing something physically demanding. I can’t adequately write about Slovenia without acknowledging that sometimes it’s really hard, even if there are snacks. I felt good going into this one. I’d had a great training run two weeks before and thought I was peaking at the right time. My race schedule looked and felt achievable. A niggle in my right knee had been giving me grief, but I was cleared to run. I travelled to Slovenia with my friend Toni, who I’d also done Lavaredo with, and the preparation was good. Plenty of pasta and awed gazing at the beauty of Bled and the... View Article
There’s a moment, towards the end of the film Saving Private Ryan, where a dying Tom Hanks says to Ryan, “James, earn this… earn it”. The pressure. Late on Saturday, as a rag tag band of us threaded up a woodland climb, silent but for the machinations of our own pain, a guy stepped aside and let me pass. He looked at me with that same look, like I should push on and earn it, and I looked back with dismay; I wasn’t sure I could up my work rate to move faster than him. I was as broken as he was. And it was all Karo’s fault. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. I’ve got a terrible habit of saying yes to things so when she suggested Monte Rosa Walserwaeg I was all in. It wasn’t until a few months later that I studied the map and... View Article
February 10, 2026,
by Pete
I realised, sometime after reading another rejection email from the UTMB ballot, that somewhere along the journey my relationship to the sport has changed: it’s stopped being so much fun. I remember in the summer of 2018, driving to the foot of Helvellyn, posting a T.S Eliot quote that said, ‘If you aren’t in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?’, and having at it. I’d ran trails but never up anything that big and spent the next six hours bagging Wainwrights after Wainwright and feeling like the whole world lay before me. If you aren’t in over your head, how do you know how tall you are? The year after, for the first time, I specifically chose a holiday destination so I could run up a mountain. I started with my feet in the Mediterranean and ran to the summit of Pico del Cielo and... View Article
October 10, 2025,
by Pete
I’d never considered that champagne would sting my eyes. It turns out, it does. By the time I found this out, however, my worries were over and there was nothing left to do but smile. I’ve wanted to run Ultra Pirineu for years. It’s one of those races that has a certain mythos in the trail running world. It could be the fervour of the Catalans, the beauty of the Pyrenees, or maybe the fact Kilian Jornet hails from here and still holds the course record. In this year’s plan it was the grand finale: return to ultra running with Lavaredo and then build on it at Pirineu. This was going to be the victory lap at the end of the come back year, or something like that. I arrived in Bagà the afternoon before and made my way to the shared glamping. It’s a small town and accommodation is... View Article
December 31, 2023,
by Pete
The descent through the forest was wild. I’ve never experienced anything like it, and I’m not sure I ever want to again. It was the dead of night and we were following each other’s head-torches through the trees. Flattish sections gave way to sudden steep drops that could only be managed by clinging onto tree trunks while the trail disintegrated beneath your feet. Emerging from the tree line a reflective arrow glinted in the head torches and pointed us left onto a road. A full moon hung in the sky ahead of us, illuminating the ribbon of asphalt as it carved its way through the alps. I increased my stride length a little to put some space between me and the guys I was near and turned off my head-torch to run by moonlight. It was as close to perfect as a running moment can be. The night was calm... View Article
I was washing pots when it happened. A good bit of craic round a campsite sink. Them telling me how tired they were, me encouraging them that there wasn’t far to go. And so they asked me whether I’d done it before. I hesitated a moment before telling them I’d done most of it, but didn’t finish. They asked where I stopped and, on hearing Kinlochleven, looked at me with something approaching pity. “Why would you stop with only one day left? Were you injured? In too much pain?” The whole adventure flashed before my eyes. The dusky run to Drymen, Loch Lomond by moonlight, the long slog across Rannoch Moor and the struggle over the Devil’s Staircase. The seemingly infinite sense of possibility. Milngavie to Kinlochleven in one spontaneous run, rinsing out my body in the pursuit of a twenty-four hour completion. I shrugged and gave a wan smile.... View Article
Legend has it Steve Prefontaine said, “the best pace is a suicide pace, and today looks like a good day to die”. That’s all well and good when you’re bombing around a track in Oregon, but Pre never looked up at Skiddaw in the clag knowing he had over twenty hours of running ahead of him. He never skidded through the bogs as you start the climb from Threlkeld up to Cleugh Head in the dark. Or had to bomb off the top of Sca Fall trying to figure what gully to take for the 3,000ft drop into Wasdale. And I’d be very surprised if he ever had to drag his tired body up the fence post scramble onto Kirk Fell in a 50mph head wind, fifty miles into a day on the fells. I know that in two weeks I should be climbing them to fulfil one of my... View Article
September 10, 2016,
by Pete
It’s a strange dance that occurs before the start of a long run; the DJ tries to pump up the crowd, with a variety of motivational slogans and Avicii tunes. The runners bounce from foot to foot, trying to find the perfect equilibrium between moving to warm up the muscles and not moving so much that the heart rate goes too high, too soon. It’s over 100, don’t move quite so much, but the tunes are getting you psyched, move a little more. “Hands in the air,” demands the voice through the speakers, and thousands of pairs of hands reach for he heavens and start to clap. The clap lacks the intense and protracted rhythm of the Icelandic clap, yet makes up for in passion what it lacks in beat. With fifteen seconds to go before the gun the tunes stop entirely. A hushed silence falls across the thousands of... View Article
