Phil's First Ultra

Completing my first Lakeland Trails Ultra in 2015 was somewhat unexpected - I'd never run further than a marathon before and just a couple of years earlier, the thought of running so far was completely off my radar.

I was working in an HMRC call centre in 2015, the first job I found after leaving teaching, taken out of necessity. The leave system was broken and my offer to help at the event was hanging in the balance. Luckily, the system came back online Friday afternoon, and twenty minutes later I was on my way to Ambleside.

I got stuck in straight away: course marking 20km down Kirkstone Pass to Glenridding in the evening, then marshalling at Troutbeck for the Ultra 100k start in the small hours. There's always an air of expectation until you see the stream of head torches bobbing down the valley. With a clear, starlit sky it was a magical experience - though probably not the best preparation for the next day.

The plan had been to sweep the first half of the 55k course up to Grasmere, but with nobody else available I ended up running the whole route. The second stint didn't get off to the best start when my recently-retired banker companion sprinted off into the distance, then turned around to ask which way we were going. We'd also fallen behind the back marker, and a checkpoint volunteer had already cleared some signage ahead of us - adding a few hundred bonus metres for good measure.

We soon got back on track and caught up with the back marker, who'd travelled up from down south with friends but was perfectly happy bringing up the rear alone. My fellow sweeper hadn't quite grasped his role, spending time trying to coax her along faster than she was comfortable with, at one point running ahead of her and pulling faces at bemused sheep. We eventually reined him in and made it home in just over 14 hours.

Setting off with wet shoes from the day before left me with ten blisters and complete exhaustion but also an incredible sense of achievement… and it's one of the few race t-shirts I've actually kept.

We’d love to hear about your Ultra memories – either from previous years or after you’ve completed yours in a couple of weeks! Why not drop us a message?