Race Director's Report - 2021 Cape Wrath Ultra®

The unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic resulted in the 2020 edition of the Cape Wrath Ultra® being postponed twice. When participants and crew were finally able to gather in Fort William last week there was a palpable sense of excitement as old friendships were renewed and the ultra-running community gathered together once again for the third edition of the Cape Wrath Ultra®.

There is no doubt that Cape Wrath Ultra® has once again justified its world class reputation. Just a brief review of the incredible video and photography from the previous week confirms the astounding drama and beauty of our route through the Scottish Highlands, and of course, the finishers rate below reflects the very challenging nature of running the 8-day 400km journey.

• 2016 - starters 95, finishers 59 – 62% success rate

• 2018 - starters 177, finishers 110 – 62% success rate

• 2021 - starters 86, finishers 52 – 60% success rate

This year’s Cape Wrath Ultra® took place over two years since our last expedition race (the Dragon’s Back Race in May 2019) and I’ll be honest in saying that I was a little nervous about delivering a complex event like this after so long in hibernation mode. It was always going to be a special event after this enforced pause, but because almost all the international participants had been unable to attend, and due to the disruption of the multiple postponements, our numbers had dropped from a peak of 330 to 86. It’s a huge change, but I remained totally committed to maintaining our high standards and putting on a brilliant event for the participants who had managed to maintain their enthusiasm, training, and commitment since entering in 2019. It was the least I could do! 

The infrastructure required to support the event is essentially the same if there are 100 or 300 runners and therefore there was almost a 1:1 ration of event crew to participants. I am certain this added greatly to the specialness of the 2021 edition, and I’d like to thank the Event Team for the superb job they did. 

Thank you to our event team:

Media team

Fiona Russell

Steve Ashworth

Calum Maclean

Matt Green (Summit Fever Media)

Ellie Green (Summit Fever Media)

Harriet D'Alessio (No Limits Photography)

Christiaan Le Roux (No Limits Photography)

Jimmy Hyland

Catering team

Julia Savory

Tim Glasby

Hilary Malyon

Tim Price

Tim Swan-Smith

Alice Silverwood

Anne Marie Lord

Louise Stewart

Emma Phillips

Daisy Sturgeon-Lowe

Pip Symonds

Virginia Bird

Cath Holloway

Tammy Ruvino

Lauren McKenna

Laura Smith

Medical team

Ally Middleton

Catherine Slater

Charlotte Hattersley

Clodagh Dugdale

John Hayes

Morag Bowie

Neil Middleton

Main camp team

Alexander Major

Andrew Norman

Graeme Lornie

Karen McPoland

Malcolm Cochrane

Natalie Rimmer

Nick Stafford

Pam Nix

Peter Huzan

Richard Lawrence

Sarah Norman

Shawn Mills

Susan Nash

Tim Cox

Michelle Creed

Water management

Ian Cowie

Luke Elliott

Plumbing and electric

Phil Sturgeon

Thomas Rouse

Tent team

Seb Boultan Oliver

Zakius Benaton

Harry Cooling

Jack Overhill

Start / finish team

Ben Joyce

Carol Murray

Ed Walker

Tania Pacheco

Timing / tracking

Malcolm Logan

Race control

Matt Gemmell

Dave Taylor

Ops support team

Mike Brogden

Louise Greenwood

Paul Horabin

Paul O'Reily

Ourea Events management team

Graham Gristwood

Janie Oates

Lisa Knipe

Lucy Scrase

Neil Davies

Shane Ohly

Sue Dowker

Tom Hecht

Charlie Williamson

Hill team

Fiona Brannan

Michael Murray

Susan Nicol

Tim Laney

Checkpoint team

Andrew Hastie

Dougie Harvey

John Irvine

First response team

Dave Howarth (and SARDA Fern)

Natalya Kennedy

Stuart Smith

Iain Airth

Course operations

Joe Faulkner

Thanks to all landowners and stakeholders

We would also like to thank the landowners and stakeholders along the route without whose permission and co-operation this event would not be possible. In fact, there are literally hundreds of landowners and stakeholders with whom we continue to liaise with and whose support, and goodwill is essential for the smooth flow of runners along the course through the Scottish Highlands. Thank you!

Ongoing health 

Whether you completed the full course or not, every one of the participants’ bodies has taken a significant battering, and we would highly recommend an extended period of recovery now. Anecdotally, it seems that having 4 weeks rest, followed by around 10 weeks of light exercise works well. All too often we have seen participants in our expedition length races return to running too early, and end up with chronic fatigue and injury problems. Take the time to let your bodies heal!

We would also like to reiterate the danger of Lyme’s Disease from tick bites. Whilst this is unlikely, if you develop a ‘bulls-eye’ rash around a tick bite, or experience flu like symptoms in the next 30 days, we would advise a trip to the doctors. Ensure that you explain you have been bitten by a tick. There is more information on the Lyme’s Disease Action website.

Ultra Mail™ 

As expected, ‘Ultra Mail™’ proved extremely popular with 4,361 messages of support sent to the participants (and event team) during the event. We love this component of the event and it is an obvious boost for participants at the end of a long day.

Feedback 

Feedback is very important to us. Whatever you have to say, positive or negative, we are keen to hear your thoughts. Whilst we don’t promise to incorporate every piece of feedback received, we do promise to read and consider it carefully. Participant feedback has helped refine and improve the event from one edition to the next and it has been instrumental in polishing the details and the event is better for it. So, please don’t be shy and send any comments you have using our contact form or email us directly.

GPS Tracks

All the participants' and most of the event team's movements over the 8 days are public and available for everyone to view in two ways:

1. You can use your (non-mobile/tablet) laptop or desktop computer and head to the GPS tracking page where you'll find a replay icon in the top left corner - which launches the replay scrubber - you can also choose to view just a few names (instead of the entire field) by using the favourites function.

2. If you prefer to get all technical and want to get your hands on the raw GPX file output of each participant's GPS track, you can download in one batch (zip file) to your computer for full interrogation! Apologies, we cannot offer any technical support in the use of these.

Live event coverage

We hope your friends and family watching from home enjoyed our live coverage of the event from our brilliant media team, and also watching the participant dots gradually head north on the GPS Tracker page.

You can read the event blogs on the news section of our website, the Facebook album has a great selection of photos from the amazing No Limits Photography (and the galleries on the website will be gradually updated), and finally you can find all the daily films from Summit Fever Media, Calum Maclean and Steve Ashworth on the 2021 YouTube playlist below:

2022 Cape Wrath Ultra®

The next edition of the Cape Wrath Ultra® will return to our usual ‘last week’ of May dates… there will be less midges then!

The dates are Sunday 22nd to Sunday 29th May 2022. The event is nearly full already, so if you were considering returning now is the time to get your entry in! 

2022 Montane Dragon’s Back Race®

If some of you are wondering, ‘What next?’ then the 2022 edition of the Montane Dragon’s Back Race® must surely be on your radar. Entries will open at 10:00 BST on Saturday 11th September and you can watch all the action and follow the live GPS tracking of the 2021 edition starting Monday 6th September. 

Finally…

We know it has been an emotional journey and we hope the memories of your Scottish expedition race stay with you forever. Rest up for now and we look forward to seeing you again soon for another adventure!

Yours in mountain running,

Shane Ohly,

Cape Wrath Ultra® Race Director