Why the Cape Wrath Ultra…

Or, sub-titled: what the actual fuck was I thinking?

I signed up for the Cape Wrath Ultra before I had run a single ultra. Yup. Yet, it felt a strangely rational decision. It didn’t feel like an absurd leap. Somehow, I saw it as possible. In typical fashion, I had combed through the websites, read all I could, and I just thought: it could be do-able. And that was enough.

Last April, with my 50th birthday approaching in June, I just got a little obsessed with the notion of it. I’ve long been attracted to the idea of doing a long journey on foot but the reality of work and family has meant it has been pushed to the margins. I don’t have any regrets about that but I saw in the CWU an opportunity to do something that would be deeply challenging and scared me a bit. In reality, there is nothing to be scared about but that’s not quite how it works. No one wants to be humiliated and we are, as a species, deeply social of course. That sociality comes with some very keen antennae for status - saying you will do something and then bombing hurts us. That easily translates into fear of failure and holds us back.

I’m generally quite cautious, not one for diving in and trusting to luck. I’ve known a few people like that and I’ve seen them get into scrapes. On occasions, it turned out badly but, mostly, they’ve often had wildly weird adventures and memorable escapades. Now, comparisonitis is a problem for people, always has been, and I don’t agonise over this but sometimes I’ve got to push through a little to make the step as it’s not my natural reaction. Last year I pushed through and took the leap.

Actually, looking back at my diary I was having a bit of a moment in March 2022. I got Covid-19 and I wasn’t too ill and had no long-term effects but it warrants a mention and it has shifted context in so many areas of life. I did a stand-up comedy gig as part of Bright Club through the University just afterwards. That really was a deep dive into the fear of social embarrassment, a white-knuckle ride, but I got through it and met some great people. Perhaps it did something to my brain as well. I decided on the 5th April 2022, while away in Mallorca for an Easter break, to do Lakes in a Day. It is the 50-mile route that traverses the Lake District from north to south, starting at Caldbeck and finishing at Cartmel, going over Skiddaw, Helvellyn and Fairfield in the process. It was to be my ‘50 at 50’ marker.

I had managed to set off a little chain reaction in my brain. I then spent my time researching the CWU. Entries for 2023 opened on the 5th May 2023 and I signed up on Tuesday 10th May 2022 after securing the necessary family support. As I said, not a single ultra under my belt but some (?hopeless) optimism about my chances. I did also take note of the option offered to do part-stages and since I signed up this has been formalised into the Cape Wrath Explorer.

By the time I signed up, I had already been running on the fells in a very consistent way for a few years. I’m lucky enough to live in Cumbria, though confusingly I am also in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. That means I just have to run over two fields and a few hundred metres of single track road and I am on the Howgill fells. Handy. I was getting out 5 or 6 times a week and typically spending an hour out there each time. I figured it was a good base and I had a whole year to get myself ready.

A year goes by bloody quickly doesn’t it?

There are now just 17 days until the start of the Cape Wrath Ultra. I did step up my training, I got around a couple of ultras without any dramas, and now I feel the butterflies. In this kind of event the butterflies are a little bonkers as there are no adrenaline-fuelled dashes to be made but, gosh, it’s going to be a nervy twitchy sort of wait now until the start.

There are still a fair few decisions to be made around food and all the packing to sort but, if I’m honest, I’m sort of ready. It would be easy to wish for more training, more kilometres, more time to prepare but sometimes you just have to accept you are where you are.

I’m looking forward to the start and the rising tide of palpitations, fluttery anxiety will be quickly dampened through the simple work of moving through some beautiful places. It will all be very familiar yet, I suspect and I hope, completely unique.