Beyond The Ultimate Highland Ultra 2025
This was last week:
When I completed 2024 Ironman Vittoria Gasteiz - my main takeaways were
(a) that before considering Ironman (or even Extreme Tri) any further I needed to get better at running, but also (b) that of the three disciplines in triathlon, I was at that time most drawn to the running.
So with that in mind, I set my sites for 2025’s challenges on some ultra-distance events. And quite by accident - listening to a podcast about something called the Jungle Ultra - the Beyond The Ultimate Highland Ultra landed on my radar. This seemed to tick all the boxes - I like running, I like mountains, and I like running in mountains. I’d heard great things about Knoydart, so this seemed like as good place to start as any.
And to be brutally honest, I signed up without giving it a great deal of thought. 125km over three days - or approximately a marathon a day for three days - seemed eminently doable, even if it was a mostly self-sufficient event (carry everything but tents). In the Highlands of Scotland.
I put in a lot of training so physically was in good shape and overly concerned about the distance. But general race and kit preparation was not what it should have been.
The two main things I learnt (the hard way):
- Take a lot more care over what you’re carrying
Every last gram of weight and ounce of space counts when you’ve got to carry (and attempt to run with it) over multiple days. I had good kit but I was not experienced about e.g., rehydrated food (which is really heavy) and I had a really good - but relatively large - sleeping bag. My pack compared to the really experienced runners was stark - there was around 3kg difference.
- Look after your feet!
It may sound obvious but when you’re doing something like that your foot health is probably the most important thing (after hydration and fuel.) We got lucky with the weather (it was mostly dry) but got unlucky with the ground conditions (it had been torrential rain the week before) so it was incredibly wet. About 3 hours in to day 1 I had badly blistered feet which I had to contend with for the rest of the event. This again mostly came down to inexperience (and wrong socks, possibly wrong shoes.)
Nevertheless, I completed it in a mostly respectable time and with some fond memories. Knoydart and the Highlands are indeed a beautiful place. The ferry ride to get there is a bit of a highlight. As for whether I’d recommend the race to others, though, that’s a post for another day.
