Shane Ohly’s Dragon’s Back Race® Party
This morning at 10:00 am, Shane Ohly started a nonstop attempt on the 380km Dragon’s Back Race® route.
Setting off from Conwy Castle, he’ll attempt to run the length of Wales, linking one iconic mountain summit with another, ultimately finishing at Cardiff Castle. The outcome is uncertain. Adversity is guaranteed. A great adventure awaits. You can follow his progress live with Open Tracking, and here, Shane explains the rationale for this challenge in his own words.
I’ve been organising events for two decades. One of my biggest achievements was resurrecting the Dragon’s Back Race® twenty years after the inaugural 1992 edition. It's an event steeped in history and legend, and there are many compelling reasons why it entered running folklore. Each year that passes, I find myself wondering again if I’ll ever get to race it myself. On reflection, I’ve concluded this will probably not happen. The demands of acting as Event Director mean that joining participants on the start line just simply would not be possible. However, in the last year, my mind slowly shifted to celebrating the event and participating in my own way.
The truth is, I often organise events that I’d like to do myself. I am attracted to challenges with genuine adventure at their core. I passionately believe that you only get adventure when you have a magical blend of jeopardy, challenge and uncertainty in the outcome. My business, Ourea Events, tries to balance these factors in successful commercial events, and it is a tricky recipe to follow.
Year after year, I say similar words to participants in the final briefing at the Dragon’s Back Race®, explaining my philosophy and reminding everyone that no one starts this event with any sense of certainty. It’s just too far, too hard, with too many variables. And now, I am starting it, too, with the same nervous excitement and sense of trepidation about what lies ahead. I can feel the butterflies in my stomach as I write this and imagine myself standing in Conwy Castle, the clock counting down a few days from now.
I’ve always felt a deep connection with the mountain environment and an innate joy when moving over technical terrain, whether climbing or running – my two great sporting loves. I am drawn to challenges with uncertainty that are both physically and psychologically very tough. Attempting to run the entire Dragon’s Back Race® route will tick these boxes a thousand times over, and I get to do this while celebrating and paying my respects to the race participants.
This will be a fully supported attempt, with approximately thirty people helping in various roles on the hill and at the road transition points. Incredibly grateful and thankful, doesn’t even come close to describing my feelings for this team.
Shane has spent over a year training on the DBR course with friends, joining recce groups with RAW Adventure, and running with participants and the event team.
The rules of the game are quite simple: the clock never stops, so if and when I choose to sleep, time will keep marching on. I’ll be following the 2024 Dragon’s Back Race® route, except for some minor deviations aligned to our recceing advice that avoids some tiny sections of private land. Also, I won’t run in and out of the Overnight Camp fields; instead, I’ll stick to the race route and just run past. No chips to look forward to sadly! By following the ‘recce version’ of the race route, I hope this enables someone else to replicate this challenge in the future.
The race route comprises a combination of mandatory and recommended sections. I’ll also be abiding by the race rules here, following the mandatory route precisely when required.
I know that pacing will be crucial, and I need to set off at a conservative pace, which will be a challenge when I feel so fit and raring to go. My experience is most likely to be similar to the backmarkers at the Dragon’s Back Race®, feeling exhausted and under constant time pressure. I think my attempt will give me a far greater understanding of the Dragon’s Back Race® experience for our participants, which will undoubtedly be a valuable lesson in humility.
There are a lot of ‘thank yous’ required just to get to this point. By a considerable margin, my wife Heather has given me the gift of time this year, enabling long training runs and weekends away while supporting a training plan that has squeezed our personal time. She has endured endless discussions about training, nutrition, and strategy. She is my greatest supporter, and I want to make it clear that this attempt would not have been possible without her.
We recommend Missing Link Coaching and Fit Think to our Dragon’s Back Race® participants, and I’ve worked with both to help me prepare. Paul Tierney from Missing Link has provided physical coaching advice, and Elanor Cormack from Fit Think has helped me prepare psychologically. Both have been outstanding experiences, and I’m delighted that we collaborate with such high-calibre organisations when we recommend services to our participants.
Shane practising his finishing pose at the 2023 Dragon’s Back Race finish
I know this will be hard beyond imagination, and I can only hope that my preparation has been sufficient to withstand the test ahead of me. This is my way of celebrating everything that I love about personal challenge and the Dragon’s Back Race®.
Hear the story first-hand
Join us on the 22nd August at 19:00 for an exclusive special webinar with Shane about his experience. It’s free to attend, so sign up and hear about the highs and lows of Shane’s journey!