Ultra Trail Snowdonia (UTS) 50km by UTMB
Last year I did a bit of course marking for this event and earnt some credits which I used to book a place on the UTS50 which is actually 55km and a punchy 11500 feet of elevation (althougfh I clocked just over 14,000), taking in two ascents of Snowdon (3560ft x 2), followed by Mynydd Mawr (2290ft) and then Moel Eillio (2382ft).
Snowdonia is one of my favourite places to run and I’d heard great things about UTS and it’s founder Michael Jones, so it was a no brainer to use my credits – the problem is that I didn’t really look at my calendar when I booked it, I just knew that Highland Ultra was in April and UTS50 was in May, so I had 3 or 4 weeks to recover right?
Wrong - two weeks.
Did I mention that I won Highland Ultra? Oh sorry if you didn’t know, you can read about it here. Anyhow, that didn’t happen without a huge effort on my part, and whilst my legs and body felt great considering three days of hard graft in the Highlands, I had slept really badly for about a week after due to weird night sweats. So, really it had only been the 5 or 6 days which preceded HU that I had finally started to sleep well and regain some energy, which I alter found out wasn’t enough.
Fast forward to Friday 12th May, myself and a couple of friends, Zuzana and Rich, who I’d car pooled with to Llanberis, arrived at registration at the event village which was abuzz with excited runners and basically half of Instagram – it was great to meet up with people I already knew and also meet people I had followed for a while. Kit check was pretty straight forward, we were given a race pack, took some photos, chatted to more people and headed out for dinner before aiming for an earlyish night. I was camping so I knew that not much sleep would be had – I was right. The campsite was on a hill so I strategically set up my tent head up, feet downhill but all this meant is that I intermittently woke up slumped in a heap at the foot of my tent, so I placed my bag as a wedge under my feet to reduce the slippage. Didn’t work.
Anyhow, it meant that I could get up early and double check my preparation with plenty of time to spare to get to the event village and have a pre race coffee, and that I did, followed by the longest toilet queue in the world which meant that I got to the starting area with 3 minutes to spare and 1299 runners in front of me. Fun.
Bang on 8am we were off and heading up our first ascent which was up the Llanberis Path up to Snowdon which was super busy but there were a few people trying to work through the crowd so I piggy backed (not literally) on them and managed to get to the top in around 1hr 15 mins.
Halfway up I saw Daniel, one of the Irish guys I befriended at the Marathon Des Sables in 2021 – we had both struggled on the long stage so ended up doing the last 30km together which also happens to be one of my best memories of the MDS. We were really excited to see each other and spent the rest of the ascent catching up before he went ahead down the Pyg Track.
It was still busy and I knew from the recce I did back in March that the Pyg Track is precarious in places. I’m not bad on technical downhills but I found the crowds and pressure to move at a pace that I wasn’t comfortable with pretty disconcerting, it required a lot of concentration.
On the start line, my hand had cramped when taking a photo, this had never happened before and I immediately put it down to a combination of lack of salts from night sweats and / or residual fatigue. I ate a Voom electrolyte bar at the time and consciously kept on top of my salts throughout the day but the damage had already been done and I suffered with the most painful cramps and spasms all day. It was also a hot day and whilst the heat itself didn’t bother me too much, I was loosing a lot of salts through sweat faster than I could stay on top of. I guess that’s what comes with trying to pull off two big mountain ultras two weeks apart, lesson learned until the next time I don’t check my race calendar.
Coming out of CP1 we started the second ascent of Snowdon up the Watkin Path which we had done during the recce and I loved it! However this time was less joyous. I had no energy and my legs were cramping badly so I took out my poles and even my forearm cramped when I reached to get them. The ascent was sluggish and I started to wonder how on earth I was going to get all the way up, let alone two more summits after this one. I was in no rush, so took my time tackling one section at a time, stopping to refill my flasks at the waterfalls and also taking the opportunity to cool down in the water.
I finally reached the top of Snowdon for a second time and was starting to feel a tad stronger. Near the top I had bumped into Elena, someone I ‘met’ through Instagram and mutual running friends. It was good to have someone to chat to and we moved at a very similar pace so I placed myself behind her and fixed my gaze on her feet as we descended the Rangers Path until we reached CP2.
We were right in the middle of the day now and the heat was claiming many victims, but there was a woodland area shortly after CP2 which offered some shady relief before we started the ascent to Mynydd Mawr, which incidentally I grossly underestimated the steepness of. When I looked at the elevation profile and saw that the second two summits were 1000+ feet less than Snowdon, I may or may not have thought to myself that they’d be easier, but how I was wrong. What they lacked in elevation, they made up for in steepness and false summits.
CP3 was in the valley between the last two mountains. I didn’t want to spend too long there but the cramps and spasms hadn’t let up at any point during the race and I was fed up with them ruining it for me so I took a little extra time to sip 4 cups of coke each with some table salt in ( I didn’t measure the free pour, I just went with ‘that looks about right’ having never added salt to a drink before other than tequila). I spoke to a handful of people who were really suffering in the heat but with one last mountain to conquer there was a sense of steely determination amongst the field.
A couple of people had mentioned that there was a false summit on Moel Eillio and I’d also had a voice note from Rich who was way ahead of me, saying that actually there were two false summits so be warned! Even with the extra intel, the two false summits were way bigger than I was prepared for. Coming down the second ‘dip’ I spotted Daniel (my friend from the MDS I mentioned earlier) and caught up with him, he was struggling too so we tackled it together. We joked that it was history repeating itself as we once again found ourselves on struggle street, helping each other out in the heat, and maybe one day we’ll share some more joyful miles together.. to which he replied ‘I only ever want to do the death miles with you Lauren’. I took it as a compliment.
As we came off the bottom of the mountain together, Daniel told me to go on ahead and he’d catch me at the finish. To be fair I’d had enough now and just wanted to get it done. I knew Daniel would be fine, he always is. So I stopped on the side of the track to put away my poles, refuel and put my music on - I know that all of this can be done on the move but I needed to also have a word with myself and even as a woman, there are only so many tasks I can handle in one go.
According to my watch there were 4 miles left and all mostly downhill - I found a second wind and went full send all the way to the finish where a couple of friends cheered me in. Physically I was ok other than the cramps, but mentally I was done and very happy for it to be over.
The rest of the evening was spent in the finishers zone cheering in other runners followed by a desperate hunt for food as we’d left it too late to eat in a civilised restaurant, so Rich and I ended up having a pot noodle and scotch egg from the local Spar shop like the athletes that we are.
10 hours and 49 minutes, 76th lady isn’t a bad effort only 2 weeks after Highland Ultra but I know I can do much better than this with a proper taper and on fresh legs – so yes, I’ve entered again next year and will make it more of a goal race.
Strava data can be seen here