The ups and downs of training and the first three days of the Cape Wrath Ultra

One of the nagging concerns about CWU is that I have not been specific enough in my training. I’ve spent some time looking at it and scrutinising the first three days.

Gradient profile of the Cape Wrath Ultra

The table below shows the gradient profile of each day of CWU.¹ The good people at Ourea Events have also offered some information on the terrain. They split it into four categories: road, track, trail and pathless. I’ve missed out road and track from this table as it is the pathless and trail that will really ramp up the challenge of the day. There is not much road and it should be possible to make decent progress along the tracks.

The first three days

A few things jump out to consider for the opening three days of the Cape Wrath Ultra.

Holding back on Day 1

Day 1 is, for this sort of terrain, verging on flat. There is still 571m of climbing to keep us honest but it’s going to be relatively easy. One of the biggest challenges will be making an effort to hold back and keep it in reserve. After all the waiting the anticipation will be high and folk will be keen to get to camp and settle in but, to use a cycling phrase, I don’t want to be burning matches.

The other factor is that Day 1 has just 16% of trail and no pathless terrain. It also starts with an 11km stretch of road - I know it is crazy but this is making me very nervous. I’ve hardly done any running on roads and often feel like I’m prone to calf injuries when I run on the tarmac. Imagine the horror of pulling up in the first 10k! I’ll be taking that very easy. I set off at 12pm in the second wave so I have two hours before the cut off at 11k to jog this very gently.

Hitting the trails on Day 2

With 72% on trails and pathless this will feel like we are out in the wild but the gradient profile is around the average for CWU at 34m/km - quite a bit lower than my usual runs around these parts. (My weekly average training gradient being 41.2-57.9m/km in my last training effort in March and April.)

I am hoping that will ensure I feel like I am making good progress without pushing hard. I’ll be concentrating on conserving any energy I can for the Day 3 effort. Day 2 finishes on a stretch from Barisdale around to Kinloch Hourn. (Through Knoydart already - wow!) I have walked this before, for one of the mostly painfully midge-afflicted camping trips of my whole life. I do recall it is a bit of a tedious up-and-down rough path and offers just a little sting in the tail at the end of a long day.

Day 3 is going to be very testing indeed

Just looking at the gradients and length it looks like Day 3 is the hardest day of the CWU. Or, perhaps a better way to put it is that it will be the day with the slowest average pace. A gradient profile of 49m/km and 76% of it either pathless or trail is going to take some work.

On a multi-day effort it won’t necessarily be the hardest day for any given individual, there are a lot of other variables to chuck in the mix. However, this will also be the roughest ground experienced since the start with 20% recorded as pathless. I don’t necessarily expect it to be the hardest day I experience, there could be worse ahead as fatigue kicks in, but I’ve absolutely no doubt it will be a deeply testing one — and getting through it will feel like a huge achievement.