Where does my journey into adventure start? Well I’m not really sure!

I guess there have been lots of little influential moments in my life rather than one particular light bulb moment. At school I was part of the cross-country team and the ’sports’ crowd. I didn’t really enjoy the running aspect as much as getting muddy!


I went on to study outdoor adventure at college, spending more time out than in the classroom. Not knowing what to do after college, I continued studying outdoor adventure with leadership and management at Worcester University.  During the course my lecture mentioned that there were two directions people took, either spending time in the classroom studying, getting the grades, or in the mountains getting the experiences to gain the many different qualifications. I maybe misinterpreted that as “go and have fun in the mountains"'.

 My first trail race I think was the Berghaus Trail Chase 2014. This was two days across the North Yorkshire Moors. I had no idea what I was getting into when I said yes to the opportunity! I just saw it as an adventure, not really knowing that trail running was ‘a thing’. It was just a freebie I was allowed to do through work, and who doesn’t love a freebie!

For a little while after University I worked at events company in festivals. One of our sister companies organised a 4 days challenge along the Cotswold Way with a couple of loop 24 hour races, long before Backyard Ultras or looped racers were as popular as they are now! I had to eat my words when I said, that doesn’t seem hard! I entered the 24-hour race, having little idea what I was doing. Whilst I had done running by this point, I certainly wasn’t a runner.  I did around 75km in the first 10 hours and blew up. I did however learn that if I run that far, and don’t eat enough, I can devour 12 doughnuts!

I continued having adventures, not really entering races but just going for big days in the mountains. Just before covid in the summer of 2019 I did my first 50-mile race, Race to the King. It was great, but what really sparked my passion was doing the Cotswold Way Century 100 miler. It just seemed like the logical progression, I grew up playing on the Cotswold Way, I worked the 4-day challenge on it, It was time to do the whole trail. I completed the 104 miles and 4500m coming in 10th place.

I gained my run leading qualifications and started reccying/ leading trips for Pure Trails Adventure.  During the summer I got a spot for the Lakeland 100. Two weeks before this I was out in the Picos early before a group arrived. The plan was to run the route over 2 days to check everything was okay before running it over 3 days with the group. In the 5 days, I had run 90km over very technical terrain and around 5000m of climbing. Talk about a taper! Unfortunately ended up with my first ever blisters, and not small ones!

Needless to say, going into a 100-mile race with blisters all over my feet, I had very few expectations!
What happened in the end really surprised me, and wasn’t the result I expected. I got bored. I got 85 miles in and got bored. So, I stopped. I was in the fittest state I had ever been in, I was making good time and was well within the cutoff times. Looking back the Lakeland 100 just couldn’t compare to the adventure running I had done through the summer. Running with 2000 runners in the mountains just didn’t have the appeal to me. At that point, I learned that the training for these runs is a much bigger part of the picture. Seems like an obvious thing to think, but it just wasn’t up to that point.

 Looking back would I have made another choice? No, I could have continued through the race and finished, to what point though? I’d already done 100 miles before, I had run all the route before, why would I? I was back running 2 days later, happier than ever to be back on my local, peaceful trails.

This was a really formative experience in my journey. I now know I look to the mountains as a refuge, to escape the modern strains of life, and escape TO reality.  With beyond Ultra I want to show people that there is a lot more to racing, and far more rewarding experiences to be had. Everyone has a different outlook, and if you love to race, great. We will train you to perform at the best of your ability, but that’s not all we are about.


If you are training for a 100-mile race, let’s say you run 1000 miles in training. What’s more a test of character, the 10% of that, or the 90% done in training?

Getting out in the hills and doing something hard, is not as hard as consistently getting out in the hills and doing hard things.

That's enough for one day, see you on the trails.