UTMB Snowdonia | TOUGHEST Ultra-Trail Race | Running Documentary

Start 3 2 [Music] [Applause] 1 inis in Wales in C as we begin your 100 km Journey we wish you the very [Music] best woo Yep, that's me. You're probably wondering how I ended up in this situation yep that's me you're probably wondering how I ended up in this situation feel good I actually feel right yeah so it's Friday and we've left norfol at 6:00 a.m. we're heading towards lamaris to get to registration and on the way we've watched multiple YouTube Vlogs just to get our heads in the right mind frame that that's that's Whata one of the smaller ones that we're going to do isn't it I don't know but I like the concern on your face finished last year apparently and Event Village [Music] repli arriving at Laris we grab our race Fest ready to be kit checked and we're heading towards the event Village and yeah the atmosphere is feeling great right now [Music] now as you can see the queue for Kit Kit check check is pretty long but they were getting through US Runners very quickly and the whole process was very smooth and very pleasant now like many of you kit check always makes me nervous I knew that I had all the gear and I also took lots of spares so just about to head to registration I've emptied out all the kit onto here and off we go wish me luck thank you thank you Dr yep y oh Wicked today or tomorrow morning Legend thank you as you can see all the volunteers and staff are EX extremely positive very informative and yeah just very positive vibes so I got my GPS tracker installed and then off I went so kit check is done and now I'm getting the photos taken at the stage our next priority was to shove 100 mile runner start some food down the burgers at the event Village were fantastic and meeting other Runners was a great opportunity to talk about stories of maybe they'd run the race before and get some Intel before the big day the 100 miles Runners who uh Ollie and craiger chatting to at the minute so ja are about to start so uh yeah going to see them off and hopefully get that through that electric and that excitement I don't know if he's come for me to interview or maybe he's come to Nick my microphone in the air you could physically feel the fear the excitement and the passion to get started any [Music] second with fire in our bellies and a spark in our eye we head back to to Airbnb to prep our bags and get ready for race day the nerves are heavy now so we go for a walk to de-stress and we'll get back to the Airbnb we stick on some more Vlogs and we are shocked at the terrain we saw we didn't realize how much scrambling there would RACE DAY - Llanberis [Music] be so it's race dat and we got lost looking for the UTS car park the stress levels are high but we're heading towards the start line ready to start the big day I just get a quick interview how you feeling Craig yeah nervous nervous excited yeah a little bit how you feeling uh yeah nervous excited aroused aroused glad glad glad we made itad made it start we got her in the end nervous and excited start the AR as well we are 10 seconds go let's have 2 rise up and become Champions and Warriors of the UTS here in sanis in Wales in C as you begin your 100 kilm [Applause] Journey the pace is quite intense as we Bwlch Glas head towards our first class time you start off running through fairly rural areas and as civilization Slips Away that incline starts to pick up so we're now 2K into the Run we bked 9 Minutes versus Target 9 minutes over our 24-hour Target and we've got a few small little climb ahead of us but the PO are coming out the longer we climb the higher the sun rises but so does our heart rate so we're still climbing up to the Snowden Summit in that direction 53 minutes and uh 3.4 mil on the watch 4 miles in and there is droplets of sweat dripping from my cap already oh that's beautiful that's the money shot right there [Music] wow J how you feeling yeah okay yeah it's a bit of a um reality check that SN CL fing [Applause] [Music] go Craigs took a little stumble as well on the bottom of the pig track but we're about a mile away from the from the a station just thund now and which has water a little break Checkpoint 1 (Pen-y-Pas) [Music] so the fall that Craig took was pretty serious I was 2 or 3 m behind him and Craig must have rolled over maybe three or four times letting out a manly scream now we were all worried for his health he said he was okay and the fo did look okay but he was a bit suspicious of a potential muscle tear or broken rib in the chest area so it was a body check time and to decide if it was time to give up the dream of all finishing together as a group of four or at least pushing on to the next checkpoint to see how he got on Glyder Fawr [Music] it's got Berry for pin Steep and the gr on my watch is saying about 25% it feels up more than [Music] that yeah yeah yeah I fell into a bug put my right leg in it which is like soaked up to there and my pole bent well badly is it usable um yeah it's usable I don't know how safe it is though but it's enough to take the weight off on the climb so do a little Vlog update Cay goes about we reckon about half an hour back but it's looking slightly tight for the next cut off cuz we only had 40 minutes on the first checkpoint in terms of cars um so we're not sure what to do at the minute we're just going to push on and try and make the the second checkpoint so I get cut off some tough old climbs there one pole bent one foot dipped in a bug it's got to be captured in 4k [Music] good my [Music] man much better obviously the grass here not the [Music] Rocks right mate [Music] downhill scrambling I know you always think oh I make up time on the downhill yeah yeah this happen I thought you know I'd be doing like 5 minute miles downhill easy crashing a jel in yeah like that yeah exactly 4 minute miles na na n dressed like dappy trying to keep the sun off of my neck um I'll put the little Sahar in cap on in a second my neck's getting bent that was some crazy scrambling see I saw a few people fall didn't got one on GoPro and was trying to be careful myself about 3 miles away from checkpoint 2 and just waiting to see really what's going on with Craig cuz he did fall back um on the climb and yeah I can't even see oan James at the minute but we're all okay just taking off that first section of this [Music] race it's funny cuz on the Go Pro I'm like ah you know we're not sure what's happening with Craig we're only 3 miles away from the a station I've just turned around a corner and seeing what we're going up and uh yeah now I'm bit R for the crep all of a sudden [Music] [Music] again still climbing not at that checkpoint yet but it's off at a stream to fill up the water I've got my poison water in there all the boys jar and Olie they're just behind me and uh it's hot real hot keep pushing now this climb and descent really took it out of me the heat was really getting to me and I needed that checkpoint more than ever but I bumped into two climbers called Bob and Dez they were really nice to chat to and I was actually following their beta down the path because they they were moving quickly quicker than I was so I tried to catch up to him um and drag myself to the next [Music] checkpoint made it over the top now and back at the bottom back to ground half a mile away from the a station feeling much more better bumped into some climbers Raves the morale a little bit just chatting about what they did today and uh getting some food in as well thanks [Music] Mateo we're approaching checkpoint two Checkpoint 2 (Glan Dena) now it's getting real [Music] checkpoint 2 was tense for the group we planned to finish together the lads as a team of four but it was not looking good for Craig the cut off for the checkpoint was quickly approaching what Craig want you to do I haven't got a clue M you know he's paid his money yeah exactly mean so we're near a bit of predicament we've been at the station probably over half an hour now waiting for cigo not sure where he is said on the tracker for about 15 20 minutes that it's imminent that he's going to rock up and he's he's still not here so we're not sure what to do logistically this is also hard because we had the car key we had the address for the Airbnb so we spoke to the volunteers and staff and told them to tell Craig give him a message that we haven't forgot about him we'll message him when we've got signal with our phones and that we've got to push on otherwise it's the end of our race as Carnedd Llewelyn well so we waited till about nearly 12:00 the cut off is in 15 minutes we've got a long way to go and it's if we want to make it the next one oh if we want to make it to the next one we're going to have to push on and even then it's very much in question if we make it that as well [Music] left checkpoint two now and headed up this next elevation this next mountain and uh we've had some serious serious scrambling to the point I thought about putting the poles away it didn't last too long but yeah I would say for sure steeper than coly [Music] [Music] little note for you guys watching if you watch this far thank you and but I'm terrified of height so this for me although physically isn't too hard of a section mentally I am uh shriveled up you know what I [Music] mean you made the made the Vlog this section was extremely narrow and we were warned by those lovely volunteers to be careful cuz there was some Slippery Rock for those moments I put the camera away look how beautiful that is I've not got any waterproof socks on and already my feet feel blistered um so I'm trying to keep them as dry as I can and yeah we're going to push on I've still not seen James and Ollie but they like to sense I'm sure they're not too far behind peace [Music] Llyn Cowlyd Reservoir - (Checkpoint 3 - Water station) [Music] currently in a lovely Forest section bit softer on the ground um I filled up we've just been to a water station I've filled up my Salamon x filter with loads of coke um and and I'm not feeling C quite now it's making me feel a bit sick and also it's a stupid thing to do because it won't go through the filter so I Ed that out and filled up at the stream and dipped my hat in the uh stream again I know I'm smiling as well but bro I'm I'm not in pain it's more of just a general everything rather than like a localized problem but sometimes a localized problem is okay cuz you can kind of work on it but me is just everything um and you can't take your mind off everything so keep pushing on I finally made it to HALFWAY Checkpoint 4 (Capel Curig) the next checkpoint look at this the bag collection area this is where we dropped off any nutrition or spare gear that we needed grabbed my bag headed to get some hot food and this is pretty much Moel Siabod halfway so I've switched over into the cinto headbands yeah taking the cap off taking a bit of a risk cuz it's been so hot um and I've been suffering with the heat but it's looking a bit more tame now the time's like half six I was going to plan to get out of that a station by quarter pass I look down I'm like it's 25 pass I'm bumped into Chris as well he's got a YouTube channel um both seem to be suffering so hopefully he makes it and I'd love to make it too and you can watch our Vlogs also bumped into Alex as well first climb out of checkpoint hits pretty narly absolutely brutal in the H house again trying to shut off the mindset I feel nauseous believe me never had a lot of come easy had to work hard struggle just to beat me had to R up so they could see me did what I had to do just to feed me and what was left over I put well I went through all the effort of deleting footage on the on the GoPro and uh really got it out for that last time from the last checkpoint um it was a real struggle I'm dealing with a bit of a Gro uh quad so if you've watched my UTMB AR of attrition Vlog which I uploaded in January exact same injury um but I've done well it hit me at Mile 17 and the the AR of attrition and today I've blasted uh over 50k so I'm doing well um I'm going to push on we got an A Chceckpoint 5 (Gwastadannas) station in 1.4 5 miles um and that's the last aid station before climbing snowdonia I really see snowdonia as like my Challenge and if I can get through that um it's going to feel possible [Music] SNOWDON (Yr Wyddfa) [Music] thank you yeah especially when you're CL now's the first time I can get the camera out been in myself by myself a lot of this see you can't see craple apart from some head torches on the mountain but I'm filming on a potato how am I doing bit scary on the snow Donia Ridge actually um but um literally put my poles away it was on all fls to stay alive I also went past two Springs and thought I'll get water the next one I'll just take off some elevation first as soon as I left that spring um there been my walk since so Checkpoint 6 (Bron-y-Fedw) [Music] it was so good to have Snowden out the way me and Luber had been working together for quite a while now and we only had two more major climbs until the Finish Line I won't lie I was starting Mynydd Mawr to get excited made it to the top [Music] Checkpoint 7 (Betws Garmon) somehow we've made the last St point [Music] Moel Eilio sort of Vlog update we're now heading towards the last 50% of our climb and then the braces is effectively done downhill and uh I'm starting to get excited terrified about the climb but it looks so easy compared to what we've done and we're really halfway up it so that is the update um can't be H the head torch off the face and uh peace [Music] out had some lovely texts from The Lads Lads Update about an hour ago really motivate really motivated me to bring it home for the boys um on this last gravel stretch now and Home stretch most of 90% of this is downhill now think we got a little lip which is going to destroy me I'm struggling with the inclines today yeah nice path at the minute but we've still got 3 and 1 half miles to go so we check in soon I'm now a mile mile and a half away I think I've done the last of the climbing it wasn't that naughty actually it was just demoralizing mile and a half that's f in go it's cool bridg let's go being able to let the wheels come off a bit and enjoy this descent has been fun M away and no matter what goes wrong now I'll flipping crawl back absolutely enjoying this descent painful but enjoying it and I can't wait to finish that across that finish line for the boys for myself and uh yeah I feel a bit emotional actually I feel very emotional more than the normal race anyway it's descent it's quite steep [Music] here we're running it in half a mile away jeers man put the poles away to try and film a little bit missed them already FINISH LINE thank you for watching everyone make sure you're trained up if you do this race it's it's a narly one and uh yeah do lots of uh in your training and probably some wys too yeah awesome race ring cheers how's the body feel my legs are shaking they've held out um the mind got stronger the CL we got to the end and uh the feet they feel mashed real trench foot mashed push on jez thank you woo done I'm hungry I'm oh Medal Time W woo congratulations thank [Music] you it's yes oh [Music] [Music] Like, comment & subscribe ❤️ so thanks for watching you know the drill like comment and subscribe if you can my slogan dreams are a step away and remember show compassion show esteem and have fun out there peace out [Music]