Iain Bethune

Cape Wrath Ultra 2025

Where to even start with this one? What an absolute epic of a race – it was everything I imagined and more. Completing the Cape Wrath Ultra was the culmination of a three year journey starting with volunteering at the race in 2023, deferring my entry in 2024 due to injury and volunteering for a second year, and finally being on the start line this year! I shared a post earlier about my preparation for the race so let’s start the story from there…

The journey to Cape Wrath starts in Fort William, and although the race doesn’t start till Sunday, Saturday afternoon is for registration, which takes place at the Fort William football club. Leaving home late morning, I picked up Gary Legg at Perth station who had travelled up on the train from Newcastle and we arrived in Fort William under hot, sunny skies – the first of many such days! At the football club, a mini event village was set up and after picking up the mandatory blister treatment kit from the on-site shop it was time for kit check and registration!  As I said before, the mandatory kit list is extensive and very detailed, so I was very pleased to have all my kit approved first time. I was given a wristband to be worn all week, picked up my race numbers and event t-shirt, and had my photo taken for the race tracking page. I was able to weigh my dry bag on the official scales and it came out at 20.1kg – not bad considering I had weighed in at 19.9kg at home and just added the blister kit. I planned just to take one 200g bag of trail mix out of my spare food and carry it in my pack on day one to get me back under the limit.

After that we had several hours to chill out, catch up with old friends among the event team and participants, and meet many new people too. There was definitely a general air of nervous anticipation, but I was quite relaxed as I knew what to expect in terms of the race logistics, and had done a lot of research on the route too. We were served our first meal by the Ourea catering team (lasagne, garlic bread and salad) and then had a short briefing and then were free to go for the evening.

I was planning to sleep in the back of the van, so after dropping Gary at his hotel, I stopped off at the chippy for a last minute carb load, then headed down the A82 to find a nice parking spot in a layby with views over Loch Linnhe towards Cona Glen where we would run tomorrow. After a relaxed evening looking over the map for tomorrow’s first stage of the race, I got my head down early with my alarm set for 6am.

Iain on Day Four of the Cape Wrath Ultra ©No Limits Photography

Day 1: Fort William – Glenfinnan (23 miles)

I actually woke around 5:30am after a reasonable night’s sleep considering it was the night before a race and I was sleeping not far from a busy road. It was already light and I was ready to go so I got dressed into my running kit, ate some breakfast and headed in to Fort William. I stopped off at McDonald’s for a breakfast wrap and a cup of tea – I was first in the door when it opened at 6:30am and placed order #1 on their system. Probably the only time I would be in first place all week 🤣 After this second breakfast I drove back up to the football club where I’d be leaving the van for the week. After packing of both my race pack and dry bag and a final check that I had not left anything behind, I locked the car and headed to the bag drop. This time, the dry bag weighed in at 19.8kg, so I took the 200g bag of trail mix out of my pack, stuffed it in the top of the dry bag and it was accepted with a final weight of 20.0kg!

I took a leisurely walk down through the town, stopping for another cup of tea and making my way to the West End car park where all the participants assembled to wait for the ferry across Loch Linnhe to the start line. I collected my race tracker and after an hour or so of chat and waiting around, we boarded the ferry. With around 180 runners in the event (including a few who were taking on the shorter Cape Wrath 100 – the first three days of the main event), there were two planned start waves. I had managed to get myself in the first wave, so the ferry was at 10am, for a race start at 11am. It only took 10 minutes or so to cross the loch but it was exciting to finally be starting out on the journey for real! When we reached the other side a piper was playing as we disembarked and made the short walk to Treslaig village hall, where we had a last minute chance for drinks, biscuits and a few visits to the toilets. It was already hot at this point and I tried to stay in the shade as much as possible, and topped up my sun cream while waiting for the start. With a few minutes to 11 we gathered on the road and as the piper played we counted down the seconds and then we were off – the Cape Wrath Ultra had begun!

The first 6 miles of the route actually follow a tarmac road down the side of Loch Linnhe. Apart from a small group who blazed off into the distance like they were running a half marathon, most people were taking it fairly steady and I settled into an easy rhythm and had a bit of chat with the other runners around me. There were some gorgeous views down the loch as we passed through banks of rhodedendrons – I reminded myself (and others) that this wasn’t even the most scenic day, it was only going to get better as we headed North.

Turning off the road into the interior of the Ardgour Peninsula, the next 10 miles climbed gradually up Cona Glen on a wide gravel track. I spent much of this time running with David Siska – it turned out that he worked in the School of Mathematics at Edinburgh University and had an office two floors up from where I used to work. Small world! It was definitely a hot day, but there was generally a good breeze blowing down the glen so apart from a few sheltered spots it didn’t feel too bad. Near the top of the glen, we took a sharply rising grassy path up to the first of many cols of the route at a height of about 1280ft.

Cape Wrath camp life is like no other! ©No Limits Photography

From here it was downhill all the way to the finish. I stopped to tighten up my shoes as they were almost new and I didn’t want my feet to be sliding around in them on the descent. David headed off into the distance and I made my way down on mostly good trail, with a few rocky and heathery sections. Some of the race hill response team were waiting where the trail led down from the open hillside out onto a wider gravel track through forestry plantation and I enjoyed picking up a bit of speed again. Coming down into the valley the breeze dropped again and for a while it felt really quite hot in the sun, especially on the sun-baked sandy road that led down towards the Callop River. Fortunately, for the first time in several years, the footbridge here had been repaired and we could run all the way across into Glenfinnan. In the last two years, participants had to finish at the end of the road, then walk back a mile and be ferried by car back to the finish.

It was busy with tourists visiting the Glenfinnan monument as I came out of the woods onto the main road, and there were a couple of race marshals directing us on over the River Finnan on the road bridge and then right into camp. A final short stretch of trail led to the finish funnel and under the CWU gantry, marking the end of the first stage! It took me 3h22, which was just around the time I had expected – not bad for a hot day, and most importantly, everything felt fine.

Coming in to camp, I was the first one back out of the 8 of us assigned to tent 21 so I was able to unpack all my kit and claim a sleeping spot in the far corner from the door. Over the next few days my post-race routine was honed to perfection. After unpacking and hanging up my race kit to dry, I’d eat a bit of beef jerky, make up a protein shake to kick-start the recovery process and then head to the nearest river or loch for a quick dip to cool off and wash. I did get a few funny looks from the tourists heading up the path to the Glenfinnan viaduct while I was floating around in the river! Then after getting dried and dressed into my camp clothes, I would have the obligatory soup, chips and a cup of tea. After that, I would sort out my race pack for the next day, replenishing it with food from the supply in my dry bag and study the map and my pacing plan for the following day, then head straight for dinner at 6pm when it was served.

As this was the first day, I also had the chance to meet the rest of my tent-mates: Wayne (sadly DNF’d after day 2), John, Tom and Alastair (completed the Cape Wrath Explorer), Julian, Nicholas and Peter (all completed the full Cape Wrath Ultra). Once everyone had completed the stage, I was placed 11th overall. I was planning to stick to my pacing plan and not get sucked into “racing” as I simply had no idea how well I would recover and be able to run for many consecutive tough days, but it was nice to know I was somewhere near the front of the pack. Since my time had been under 3h30, I also had a mandatory late start time of 8am for the next day. Normally, you can start each day any time between 7am and 9am, with most choosing to start as early as possible, especially on the longer days with tighter cut-off times. The fastest runners have to start later to avoid them arriving at the finish before the event team have had time to build it! Although it was great to have the first day done, the focus was now on tomorrow which would be the first “full day” of the race so I got off to bed around 9pm and was soon asleep.

8 days in the Scottish wilderness ©No Limits Photography

Feeling inspired and ready to take on the Cape Wrath Ultra OR 100 in 2026?

Over 50% of entries have already sold out, click the link below for your place on the ferry to the Cape Wrath startline.