Well that was a tough day out!
Introduction
Back in 2023 I signed up for the ROC Trilogy of races after reading about Mike Daly and Chris Pitt’s experiences at the ROC Wales. For those who haven’t come across the ROC series of races please do read my report, and Mikes. The shortened story is the races consist of:
- 1500m Swim
- Bike to a big mountain
- Run up a big mountain
- Run down a big mountain
- Cycle back from big mountain
- Do a little 1km run for the finish
After getting pretty burnt out of “normal” races I decided to give the “trilogy” a go hearing that there was an excellent medal/hoodie off the back of it. The races are Wales (Snowdon), England (Scafell Pike), and Scotland (Ben Nevis).
Lead In
The ROC Wales was a pretty humbling experience, I wasn’t well on the day of the race which likely didn’t help things, but it was, without a shadow of a doubt the most difficult thing I’d done (so far). After the race I took a bit of time out to regroup and started training again in mid June. Although training consistency hasn’t been a strength since the arrival of my (now two year old) I was pretty happy with my training leading up to the event, albeit I was very lucky that when I rolled my ankle three weeks out that it wasn’t a major issue which was resolved with a bit of ice and a week off running. For those who need a hint, “running” doesn’t feature in these races as much as you might typically expect..
After Wales being a pretty rushed experience, we decided to spend a bit more time in the Lake District, it’s one of our favourite places in the UK so it seemed like a no-brainer if we could make it work out. As it happened, we ended up staying in a Yurt, well technically two. The first being Monday – Friday near Bassenthwaite and the second being Friday – Sunday about 100m from the race start line. The location couldn’t have been better if we’d tried and it took a great deal of stress out of race morning (trying to get a two year old dressed and breakfasted is hard at home, let alone when you’re in a hurry!).
Registration
Registration was a super easy affair, good facilities and helpful support around. Given the nature of the race the whole transition process is a little more complicated. You have a mountain bag containing your shoes and mandatory equipment for the run which they ship off over night to t2. You then rack your race in the morning of the race for ease.
Race Morning
Oh good, a bit of a cough, oh well it’s not as bad as Wales and I got through that.. Amateur hour though, forgot to take a towel to transition and had to make the 100m walk back to the yurt to grab one before starting.
One of the really cool thing about these races is you have the same number throughout the series if you do the trilogy, so I bumped into a few familiar faces. Including a gentleman who I think I confused a lot at Wales when he was talking about the Saints playing Gloucester the day before. I’m not an egg kicker and for some reason I got in my head that Saints were Exeter rather than Northampton so spent a good few minutes talking absolute rubbish to him. Weirdly it’s been eating away at me so it was good to correct myself and apologise for the confusion. It’s odd some of the things that happen on race day.
Swim
Cold, not as cold as Wales. The water companies had been dumping sewage into Windermere for a solid period of time prior to the race so I was looking forward to this even less than normal. That being said it was actually pretty nice, it felt a lot quicker than the time would suggest, I was definitely in more congestion than I normally would have been. The main issue with the swim is it’s quite a shallow start on quite solid rocks, I’d really suggest that if anyone considers this race to think about taking swim boots.
I had to remind myself when seeing the time that it was 2 mins faster than Wales, and it’s 14 degree water which just saps the energy from you. I also think my wetsuit has shrunk again as it felt really tight across the arms, I’m probably going to pick a size up to see if that makes any difference.
Swim: 37:39
Bike One
Getting the excuses out of the way. The bike leg on these races is really difficult to pace, you want to make some good progress as the aim of the game is to beat the mountain cut off so you can go to the summit, but you also really can’t afford to overbike when you’ve got an 18k “run” with ~1k of elevation and then repeat the bike. I also had a heavily deflated rear tyre (30psi) as I found out afterward, which made the handling somewhat dubious.
Regardless, I felt like I made decent progress on the bike, passed a chunk of people and biked well within myself, the bike route itself starts off pretty nice, flat wide roads. Very few profanities uttered at close passing cars, generally great. The second half throws in about 450m of climbing over a few punchy climbs, and I wasn’t looking forward to the return leg. By this point the temperature was climbing and I was starting to feel a bit dehydrated (Dumb Dumb here realised that I had only had a coffee in the morning). With the hassle I had in Wales with this I eased off a bit as I had not got any electrolytes on the bike (another transition faux pas, they were in my bag). I pulled into t2 in 1h 47, again almost 2mins quicker than Wales which I’ll take.
Bike One – 1:47:00
Run Up
After T2 we started up the climb. It’s 9km each way, with ~1000m of climbing, the first couple of km is runnable, then it angles sharply upwards. It’s also very different to Snowdon in that Snowdon is a steady climb the whole way, but you keep on going up. Scafell there are about five false peaks on the route that you have to contend with both physically and emotionally, especially given the temperature was in the high twenties by this point. Fortunately there was a load of spots to soak hats to keep a bit cooler and I’d taken on a good amount of electrolytes so the suffering was minimal.
There is a 1230 cut off at what I thought was six km in, but transpired to be 6.8km just past Angle Tarn. Figured we’d have loads of time but it was actually looking pretty tight, fortunately the little banter group I was in all made it with time to spare to continue the final slog to the summit.
After a few more false summits and a boulder field you reach the final scrabble up to the peak, this is a really technical section which I struggled with, you start getting in your own head and thinking “what if I slip”, well just don’t slip dumb dumb, problem solved.
As I approached the peak, I locked eyes with a bloke in a yellow rab jacket and thought “I recognise that guy”. It was none other than Nicky Bloor a good friend and ex colleague who’d made the trek (both metaphorically and literally) to Scafell from Manchester to come and support with a bag of goodies. It was great to see him, and he was one of the people that came and cheered me on at Bolton. Nicky himself is a great climber and runner, having done Kilimanjaro and the Manchester Marathon. Thank you Nicky for coming out!
We grabbed a photo at the summit and then it was time for the downward(ish).
Run Up – 2:36:36
Run Down
The added benefit of Scafell is the false summits mean that you get a decent chunk of climbing on the way “down” as well, although nearer to 150m than 1000m. It’s still enough to make your legs hurt though!
The first 1k of the run down is tough as you’re heading down the scramble before going up the other side to the boulder field. A more technical runner would be able to make good time descending, I personally found the Snowdon decent a load easier and undoubtedly lost some time on the way down that I shouldn’t have.
The weather started to turn, and was threatening to absolutely hammer it down so I was keen to get back on the bike asap, a number of people on the return leg had obviously run out of water and were pretty dehydrated. The temperature on the day hit 30 degrees so not an easy day.
Run Down – 1:56:36
Run Total – 4:33:09
Bike Two
After pumping up my flat and refilling fluids I braced myself for the return bike. This is where I really started to suffer at Wales, but inexplicably (or not) the return bike I felt pretty great. The first 15k or so was pretty tough climbs, I passed a number of riders who were cramping up on the climbs, and made it to the intermediate feed station. In honesty I probably didn’t need to stop here but I grabbed a glass of water and a protein bar for the finish and said hello to a couple of people I met on the mountain. I then knuckled down and got cracking, I felt like I got a third wind and was picking people off nicely on the bike, in fact one chap commented that I was flying past. There was a brief stretch on the final bit of dual carriageway where I had a bit of an argument with a driver which knocked some speed off on a slight incline; it was a bit emotionally draining but we got the speed back up and finished off the last couple of little hills past a chap who was desperately trying to finish on a flat tyre.. (Hope you made it chap!)
Into transition to see Becky, William and Chewie waiting.
Bike Two – 1:48:57
Run Two
In all the ROC races you finish off with a little run just to really break you. The England run takes you past the finish line and round the woods for a slightly short 1km. At this point I can’t emphasise the difference between Wales and here, the run down the beach took me almost 11minutes with multiple bouts of cramp. The run here I went off at ~4min/km pace and dropped to just under 5min/km for the rest with a couple of little kickers. Overtook someone which was amazing and was able to grab William and run across the line with him.
This was something I’ve been wanting to do for so long and I can’t put into words how incredible it was. Hopefully it’ll show on the finish line video but it was truly one of the best moments of my life.
Run Two – 5:28
Total – 9:22:35
Wrap Up
After the race I had a Pimms, a cuddle with the family and a nice massage (at which point I cramped nicely!).
We hung around and soaked up some of the amazing atmosphere for a bit and heard some of the times of the winners (First Male 5:18:14 with a 2:10:48 total run).
Overall the race itself was incredible, I’d thoroughly recommend it to anyone. I was pleased in general with my performance, although it shows there’s some work to be done before Scotland. My transitions could definitely be faster and I could do with cutting a bit of time from the bike, although it’s a mountain bike course so very different again! In terms of hydration and nutrition, two areas which have historically been a big weakness with GI issues, dehydration and under nutrition being rife, I’m really pleased, I don’t think I could have asked for better really on race day. No cramp, no bonk = Good Result.
Overall my time was 37 minutes or so slower than Wales, which I think is good going given the run is almost twice the distance and the overall elevation is a bit more. I was super super pleased with the final run and return bike as that took what could have been a miserable experience (ala Wales) and made it great fun.
When all was said and done we wandered back to the yurt and I got to read the Gruffalo three times whilst cooking burgers for tea! Didn’t you know? There’s no such thing as a Gruffalo..
