“Daddy… when are your legs going to be better?” asks my 4-year old this morning as I haul myself out of bed. Then she suggests I go and see a doctor. Others say “you’re nuts” and point me towards a different sort of doctor. I don’t think I’m nuts, but I suppose you can make up your own mind on that after I tell you about my 2025 Lakeland 100.
I’ll start with the course. First of all, the Lakeland 100 is not 100 miles. It’s 105. I would like it renamed or, better still, shortened. This was my third completion so I know it well enough to even specify which bits should be cut out to get it down to a nice round ton. Secondly, it’s slow. This ain’t the South Downs Way. The course record is about 1.5 times that of the SDW100 and that translates pretty well for my times too. There’s 6500m of climb but it’s the terrain that really kills the pace: steep ups and downs, narrow single track and rocks everywhere, from big slippery ones to little ankle-breakers all laying in wait to ruin your race if you’re not careful.
The event itself has been going since 2008. It started off as the UK’s answer to UTMB but safe to say there’s been some divergence since. Where UTMB is a global brand/phenomenon/money making behemoth screaming for attention, Lakeland is a quiet gem doing its thing in a sort of understated way. But once you experience it and understand it it’ll get under your skin and make you feel all warm and funny about it. It’s cheap at £160 entry with free camping included. It’s inclusive with a 50-mile race and a kids’ Lakeland 1 alongside the big one, and a straightforward entry process. It’s well run by inspirational people. But above all it’s got a bit of magic that means people come back year after year, live a shared experience, build relationships with other runners and their families, watch said families grow and often sprout other runners, and celebrate high achievement at the end of it.
In 2022 I ran the 100 in 29h52. I didn’t realise how good that time was until I tried to beat it in 2023 and managed 33h23, blowing up my quads in the first third and struggling home from there. Both times I’d gone with my wife who ran the 50 and little Chloe who “ran” (or was pushed around in a buggy) the Lakeland 1. Wonderful memories and experiences but too difficult this year with 2 young kids so they stayed at home dot-watching while I headed north with a mate. He was taking on his first 100 but hadn’t done much training. I wasn’t too bothered about my finish time pre-race so I said I’d run with him as long as it didn’t risk a DNF for me.
At 1800 Friday we were off, starting somewhere near the back and sticking around there as I set a conservative pace, looking after my mate (who broke a pole about 90 seconds into the race) and my quads. I was 672nd out of 722 starters through the first checkpoint. The first and last thirds are pretty tough, with a mercifully easier bit in the middle, so the first goal was getting to Braithwaite (32 miles). The plan to take the downhills super slow and maximise the flats seemed to be working as we were up around 500th by the time we got to Braitwaite at about 5am. I was in a bit of trouble, though. I was feeling ropey with a combination of dizziness and nausea and I’d made more trips to the toilet by this point than in all my other big ultras combined. Thoughts of quitting were starting to surface as I couldn’t fathom keeping this up for another 20+ hours. I figured I needed some sleep so I dashed off ahead, felt great once I got the legs moving and shut my eyes for 10 mins at the next checkpoint until my mate arrived. He was doing OK but had some problems of his own and wasn’t going to be picking up the pace. We shuffled off again and all my crap symptoms came back so I concluded that I needed to push on and get some adrenaline pumping to save my race. So at mile 43 we said our goodbyes and off I went, foot firmly on the gas pedal. Oh what fun it was to run freely. I zipped along the flat section of old railway line (absolute gold on a course like this), flew up what I’d previously seen as a never ending slightly uphill trudge up the Old Coach Road to about half way in 17 hours. Everything felt fine and I knew I was in the game at this point. Not the case
for my mate who would ultimately get timed out after a gutsy 22-hour slog on screaming feet.
Next target for me was the halfway(ish) stop at Dalemain, mile 59, which I hit in 18h30, 2hrs down on both 2022 and 2023, and 374th place. In my drop bag I’d left my Nike Ultrafly Trail shoes (super shoes for the trail, so they say). Not really the right terrain for them but I was making hay on the flats so I thought I’d take a bit of a gamble and stick them on, hoping I didn’t crack an ankle on the technical stuff later on. Off I went with new socks and shoes on and two bowls of roly poly and custard in the fuel tank. Got a bit carried away charging along the next fairly easy section, geeing up spectators with fist bumps each of which gave me a little boost, as did every time I went past a another runner who would shout something nice. I could tell from the surprise in voices that I was looking great compared to those around me, and I remembered being on the other side of that coin in 2023 when I was the one grinding it out in the 2nd half, so I fancied I could claw back 2 hours on myself and get in around the 33/34 hr mark.
Into the last third and I had a few fuelling issues where I ran out of gas a mile or so before the next checkpoint so had to back off the pace, and I struggled to keep up with others on the big climbs. I treated myself to a 6-minute nap on Fusedale which turned out to be a masterstroke as once we got to the flat on the top and subsequent stretch along Haweswater that everyone hates, I was flying again. I settled into a repeatable pattern of going hilariously slow up the climbs, pushing moderately on the downhills bearing in mind the risk of rolling an ankle in these shoes and giving it the beans on the flats. That saw me take 20 or so minutes out of every split all the way to the finish versus the 2023 benchmark. That’s not to say that I was going quickly. The course just doesn’t allow that. So at Kentmere (mile 82) with the back of it broken, you’d think, I was still looking at another 8 hours to tick off the last quarter. Still so far to go in terms of time and miles. 500 yards out of Kentmere my bag fell apart so I was lucky that happened so close to a checkpoint where I could fix it. Ambleside (90 miles) is always a highlight as you go through the middle of the town past people cheering you on from pubs and the roadside. It was flat so I was motoring along there which got them engaged and again I channeled my inner extrovert (surely that’s not a thing) and used some interactions to pump me up and move the legs even faster. From there it was more of the same but by now I was catching and passing 50 runners who had started in Dalemain 3 hours before I left so I got plenty of positivity from then as I went past, and tried to give out what I could to the 100 runners I was passing without being patronising. Again, I’ve been on both sides of that conversation and it’s a fine line to tread. I’d like to think I helped a few battered runners keep going and not throw in the towel having got this far.
It was getting dark again now and I rolled my ankle a couple of times on the descents. I should have been taking them easier managing the risk of a race-ending splat but I was in the zone now and I just kept turning up the dial. Didn’t quite have the legs to sustain the pace on the flats but I did for the non-steep downs so I kept targeting those for the big time gains. As I got towards the finish my calcs suggested I’d just miss my 2023 time so that knocked me back a bit. I sat down at Tilberthwaite (102.5 miles) which I’d never done before, wolfed down 2 cheese toasties which were absolutely divine and hauled myself up the last bastard of a climb. Half way down the other side my watch was down to 2% battery and had shut down the activity. I had no data on how far was left but I could see the lights of Coniston in the distance and the watch did tell me one thing: the time. It was 0303 and I had 20 minutes to get down and dip in under my 2023 time. Newly enthused, I politely ordered a gaggle of 50 runners out of my way, turned my headtorch onto “blinding lighthouse” mode hoping the battery would last, and abandoned any self-preservation strategies that had got me this far to bounce down the last of the trail and onto the road where I threw in a 7-minute mile to finish in 33:20:52.
Not the quickest way to run that race but maybe the most fun. That stats say I passed 509 runners from the first checkpoint to the finish, and 200 from Dalemain, for a 163rd place finish. It was 62 miles and 19 hours of catching and passing people from when I left my mate at 0800 on Saturday morning.
30 seconds after crossing the line I was walking like a tin man. 10 mins later I was in a shower peeling off disgusting underwear wondering if my feet will ever be clean again (my wife has asked this several times since getting home). Half an hour later I was in a sleeping bag for a couple of hours of terrible, painful sleep. Gave up on that and went back to the finish line to cheer in some other runners, chat with some of the names and faces I’d seen out there and generally soak up the vibe with a medal round my neck. Today I don’t need the medal bit to be lapping up the vibe of high achievement.
You get a “Lakeland Legend” slate for 5 completions. I can’t really feel the toes in both feet or the sole of one. My back’s sore from when I slipped and smashed it on a rock early on. The legs are stiff. Everything aches. I’ve got a few blisters and there’s been some chafing. Do I need a doctor? No, I just need 2 more completions for a slate. Would I need a doctor if I didn’t put myself through these endeavours? Probably, but I’m not paying to find out; I’m just going to buy another pair of trainers instead.