By Zoe Murphy

I have taken part in the Dragon’s Back Race® once before in 2021 and have also worked on the event in 2022 and 2023.  I felt I had unfinished business as a runner as the last time I had a stress fracture building into the race so only had 6 weeks training before standing on the start line.  I knew I could do better so wanted to come back 100% fit and see what I was capable of.  Having worked on the event in 2023 I was totally inspired and in awe and just knew I had to return in 2024. 

I think before you take on such an incredible feat as Dragon’s Back Race that you have to know your why.  With a number of life events turning my life upside down then I needed a goal, a purpose to my year and this seemed like the perfect choice. As soon as I signed up I messaged other friends who I had met through volunteering or running that I knew were also doing the race and got a tent of 8 together. “DBR VIP Tent 2024” WhatsApp group was formed and this was the base for the banter and endless questions of the next 12 months!

A race like this is so much more than just the six days of the race itself.  It’s the friendships you form along the way, the memories that you make on the recces, and how you recall them fondly during the race.  And when the clag is all around you, you know what the views should look like on the top of the Carnedds!

I had spent many weekends recceing the route with my training buddies Marc Ward and Rich Williams. I’ve known Rich since school but I only met Marc in the last couple of years through the running community and Dragon’s Back Race. Along with some awesome recce runs with last year’s winner and great friend Robyn as well as Event Director Shane. I believe in the process, and if you have put the training in then the race itself is the cherry on the cake.  So I wasn’t really nervous before the race, I was genuinely excited for 6 days in the mountains, away from the office, doing what I love, and couldn’t wait for it to begin.

Annoyingly 3 weeks out from the race after a great 8 month training block, I pulled my calf!  But with some amazing treatment and some magic K-tape, I made it to the start line (just!).  As I always say you can only control the controllables so as long as you have done everything you can then there is nothing to worry about.  Sadly the uncontrollables were my demise…

My race was all going great, I was totally controlling my effort and my running and just having the best time.  It then all unravelled for me on day 3.  Sadly my nutrition went wrong with a huge sodium deficiency that I could not fix which led to food not going in and no energy to push any more.  From Machynlleth support point it was a slog of an afternoon to get back to camp and also with a nav error due to brain fog the second half of day 3 unfolded badly.  This then led to my stomach being in a bad place and my whole race unravelled from there.  I just couldn’t eat my dinner which meant I wasn’t restocking the energy for the following day.

I knew if the energy wasn’t going in then I didn’t have the energy to run well.  This is basically where the race just started to spiral downhill with a severe lack of energy, feeling sick most of the time and not being able to take in the volume of nutrition I needed.  I’d gone from taking on 70-80g of carbs per hour to more like 30-40g if that, and by day 5 I was basically running on water only and literally just taking a gel on to get up each climb (and two cans of pop at the burger van!). 

The last thing I ate/drank on day 5 was going up Pen y Fan then had 4 hours of nothing so my body just started to give up on me. I couldn’t really see properly and the legs just weren’t working.  Every up was just so slow going and the last descent in the dark I could barely see as my vision became so blurred.  When I hit the tarmac at the bottom I think the relief to just get to camp took over and my body finally could “breathe”.  But with how hard I had had to dig just to get to camp, my body couldn’t take it and I proceeded to projectile vomit and continue to do so for many hours.  I finished the day at 9:15pm and sat in that finish area for about 40 minutes as I just couldn’t move.  I then spent the whole night in the medical tent whilst they tried to piece me back together and stop me from vomiting every 20 minutes. 

The anti-sickness medicine wasn’t working and my blood sugars were dangerously low.  They wouldn’t let me go until my sugars went up but every time I put something in I was just sick!  By the time the med tent shut at about 1am I was still vomiting.  By now the lovely medic Liz had got the medical director Nikki out of bed to assess me.  They were discussing putting an IV drip in me to sort my blood sugars out but they made me aware that if this happened then I would be pulled from the race and wouldn’t be able to make it to Cardiff.  Bearing in mind at this point I was still vomiting everywhere, hadn’t eaten for about 8 or 9 hours I was still in my head thinking I could make it to Cardiff….I had no idea how I was planning to achieve this! But I knew I wanted to try.

I begged the medics not to put the IV drip in and to let me sleep and see how I was in a few hours.  They wanted to keep an eye on me so put me to bed in a cot bed in the med tent for 3 hours until the next shift came on at 4:30 in the morning. I was definitely a surprise to Nikki and the team when they arrived for their morning shift!  I managed to put in a 500ml bottle of Precision Hydration electrolyte, a packet of salted crisps and a bowl of cornflakes by 5am.  At this point they allowed me to leave the medic tent but said I had to see how I felt and I was not allowed to leave the camp until I returned for them to assess me.  But now it was 5:30am, I hadn’t eaten for basically a day and had 2.5 hours to pack up my tent stuff, pack my run bag for day 6, find my run kit and try to eat something!  The challenge was on and I wasn’t planning to give up any time soon, I had to at least try to get to Cardiff. 

Sometimes you just need those special moments in life to boost your spirit and two of those came just as I left camp feeling sorry for myself, one was seeing my awesome friend Robyn Cassidy at the gates of the camp as I left and the other was a surprise visit from my puppy Ozzie who had been brought down from Chester in hope that seeing him would give me a boost and it defo did.  I have learnt that puppy power really is a thing!  Day 6 was a such a slog, puppy power only gets you so far (about a mile down the road!) but one foot in front of the other got me there along with some tears and a lot of inner swearing along the way!  Never have I ever been so happy to see Cardiff Castle. 

The finish was so surreal as I honestly didn’t think I was going to make it but that feeling when you run through that archway into those castle walls and to see all of your family, friends and race supporters willing you to that finish line is something I will treasure forever.

It's hard to say what my favourite day is in terms of the route as it is all so varied and honestly just the best route. I love Wales and just think it is incredible to be able to run the whole spine of Wales with my own two feet.  My favourite day this year was day 2, I got to run with training buddy and tent mate Marc all day and made a new friend Ryan Jones from the get-go out of camp.  We all ran together all day and even picked up a few more recruits to our gang as the day went on!  We had so much fun all day in the Rhinnogs and just had a blast so I’d put day 2 down as my best day.

My biggest challenges were my gut issues in the latter half of the race and not being able to take on enough energy to fuel running up to 80km each day.  It took its toll, and my body just couldn’t handle it having to fat burn for 3 days and the inflammation that was taking place in my body was becoming all the visible as I began to swell as the fluid retention increased (to put this in perspective, by 48 hours after the race I had put on 9kg in fluid retention bearing in mind I hadn’t eaten properly in 3 days)  Overcoming this nutrition challenge during the race was both a mental and physical battle and had to adapt to run at a low level using up as little energy as possible rather than being able to push and race as I had the first few days.

Having done the race once before I made most of my learnings the last time just by doing it.  My biggest takeaway from the first time was race specificity training: getting out on the course and if you can’t get on the course then replicate it near to where you live. Elevation is key so if there are no hills then the treadmill is a great tool. I used the treadmill once a week without fail for a long hill rep session that would only have short 1-2 min recoveries, I could not replicate this outside. I also remember from 2021 lastly, look up, look around and take it all in because it truly is one of the most epic things I will ever do in my life.  My second lesson learned…don’t lose your nutrition! And if you do don’t panic.  Stay calm, think logically and make sensible decisions in order to fix it rather than just panicking and making it worse.

Reflections on finishing is that I am immensely proud that I pushed through the suffering. My friends would all say that I am one stubborn individual and if anyone was not going to give up it would be me.  Often the “why” is more important than the race and for me the why was my everything.  This race has held me together for the last 12 months and not finishing it would have been a failure in my eyes and a pill that I wasn’t willing to swallow. So I literally lived by my mantra all week of “whatever it takes”. 

I said numerous times during the week “Never again” but now I reflect and know there is a better performance in me so….maybe!

Feeling inspired to take on the full Dragon’s Back Race® or The Hatchling in 2025?