Altra 13 Valleys Ultra Marathon
Friday 27th September
As the sun was beginning to set on Friday evening, John Logan laced up for what would become the ultimate test of his physical and mental endurance. At 6pm, he lined up on start line of the 180km ultra marathon, a brutal, unforgiving journey that would push him through sleepless nights, relentless terrain and elevation, and the edge of exhaustion. This wasn’t just a race, it was a battle of willpower, grit, and sheer determination. And yet, by the early hours of Sunday morning, John crossed the finish line. Weary, victorious, and just in time to celebrate his daughter’s birthday. What follows is John’s raw, honest reflection on a challenge that defines what endurance truly means.
John Logan at the Loch Ness 24 hour race earlier in the year
“The 13 valleys ultra in the lake district offers keen ultra runners options of running either the 13,7,5 or valleys within the Lake District National Park, ranging from 22k to 180km, all unsupported. The race has a consistent DNF rate of around 60% emphasising its difficulty.
I took on the 13 valleys option with elevation of over 22,000ft in hope to beat my personal elevation best of around 9000ft along side my maximum distance. (To put this into perspective, Mount Everest is 29,000ft).
After a fairly decent training block including other ultras, injuries ups and downs I still felt I had enough to at-least complete this ultra, but I found out very early how hard this was going to be, due to the very technical terrain (probably should have recced it at least once or trained specifically on this terrain). I think the last time I seen terrain like this was probably my time in the army but how I forgot how hard it was, to climb and descend especially in the cold wet darkness. I quickly gave up about pacing and placings and made this about not going over an ankle or getting a knee injury and just enjoy and finish it. I knew for each person that over took, one was going to probably DNF, so my race position remained fairly consistent.
Generally, I felt good and continued through the checkpoints to ‘ultra shuffle’ the flats, hike the climbs and decent, and knew if I could make it to Grasmere where the drop bags were at around 72 miles I would be in with good chance of finishing. After a quick re-organisation, kit change and hot scoff, I was on my way and knew likely I would be going into a second night, but was prepared. At this point I didn’t have to use any warm or wet kit.
The torrential rain started at 6pm the second night, 24 hrs in, and lasted to 12am. Unfortunately during Sticks Pass, the largest climb around 3000ft, which made a difficult race even harder, my pace slowed and the niggles and twists tears and bumps started to take their toll from each and every fall. By now, I had donned every bit of kit to keep warm and dry. By mile 100 I was battered, bruised swollen and down to a 35 (ish) min-mile pace, but I was far from done. I knew I could just about walk it in and so I did to around 13 miles and lost about 6-7 hours. But, this was the first time doing a technical mountain ultra and going into a second night, which was a challenge for me, and I’m glad to have prevailed.
If I could sum this ultra up one word it would be ‘unforgiving‘.
I finished in 37 hours 44 minutes and 19 seconds in 23rd out of 78 finishers. With 117 DNF and 105 DNS, these stats highlight again the difficulty of this distance and the need for course specific training (which I ignored). I got away with this one but it was by far the hardest running event I have done. I was glad to get back up the road with my finishers medal with many lessons learned and move on from ultras on to shorter distances, for now….”
Results
23rd Place, 37h 44m 19s.