Jenny coached Luke for his successful Ramsay Round completion in 2022 and again for his Paddy Buckley Round in 2024. They sat down together a few weeks ago to reflect on the Paddy experience, and Luke’s journey through the ‘Big Three’ rounds – a feat which at the time of writing fewer than 100 people have completed within 24 hours for each round.
Jenny: can you tell us the backstory? You’ve done all three of your big rounds now, right?
Luke: My three rounds were extremely different, I think. I did my Bob Graham, first. That was nearly ten years ago now. I helped a friend, Chris on a round, on Broad Stand, the rope section, and then decided to do Leg 4 with him just for a bit of a run out. At that point, I probably wouldn't say I was an active fell runner. I liked running, I just was out in the hills a lot, and climbing, and my work kept me fit as an outdoor instructor. And Chris said, you can do yours next. I was like, right, okay. That was in the June. So I ‘trained’, in inverted commas, for about three months. I went out and did a leg, and then I did two legs together, and then I did a leg again, and I got to know the route. And then I did it in the September. I hurt myself quite a lot doing it, I think. Well, I couldn't run really for months afterwards, which was bad.
So I then had a seven year break, and I decided I'd try the Ramsay Round. When was that? [checks with Jenny] 2022? Yeah, 2022. I didn't know how to train, so I got Jenny to help. And both of them [Ramsay and Paddy] afterwards, I don't know why I use this as a bit of a touchstone, but I felt like I could run relatively soon afterwards. Especially the Paddy Buckley, I could run afterwards within possibly days.
With the Ramsay, living in the Lakes, it’s much harder to know the route. So I realized I needed to know that I was fit enough to do it, and then go and do it. So did a season's worth of training, I think it was about five months. I did it with one recce day, of under a third of it.
Then, I had a year off, and 2024, this year, trained for the Paddy Buckley Round. Trained very similarly. I think we did very pretty similar in terms of training?
Jenny: If anything, it was a little bit lighter than Ramsay. I was conscious of ever so slightly pulling it back because I didn't want us to hit the point we hit before Ramsay where you were just sick of being on the hill and sick of long days and it had got to be quite a stressor.
Luke: That was good. I didn't notice that this time which was good. It was definitely a thing [before the Ramsay], and I think it's a real key one to remember, is training is really hard. And like, if you want to actively train, you've got to be aware that sometimes you really don't want to go out, and you have to push yourself to go out as much as you can. But also listening to your body and going, actually no, it won't work today. And I have a very busy life, like lots of people. And I have a physical life, and as a result, I often find myself getting to the end of the day going, I don't want go out because it's raining; I've been rained on all day, and I've been lifting wood around, or you know, working on a farm, or whatever I've been doing. And so I'm physically tired and fighting that mental battle which we all have to go through when we're running long distances.
But my training obviously went well because, my support crew couldn't keep up with me, because I was going so fast on the Paddy Buckley. [both laugh]. And we planned for 22 and a half hour schedule, and I got around in 21 hours and 12 minutes, which I was really chuffed about. And I ran really well. I felt really good all the way through it. I got to points on the Ramsay where I was like, I'm not sure I can do this anymore, and I need to sit down and eat some food, and I never got to that point with the Paddy Buckley round.
Jenny: You had a point before Ramsay where you were almost just going to bin it off and not do it. And it never felt like that happened with Paddy. You seemed really chilled about it.
Luke: Before the Ramsay…I just got sick of it, and life was busy, and it was overwhelming, and I didn’t think I could do it. And, you know, having a coach who's outside your friendship group or family, it's that accountability which is really good. It's a real positive accountability, I think. And you came around and we had a chat, didn't we? And we just sat down and gently worked out what the plan was. And that was really good. Whereas, yeah, with the Paddy Buckley, I think I maybe I knew that it could happen, so I was like, don't worry about it. I'm gonna give it a go.
And one other thing with the Paddy Buckley is you don't have to do it in under 24 hours if you don't want to. So I could've, like, done in two days if I'd fancied it. As long as it's continuous, you get a round, which is really nice. I like that. I was really chuffed that that I've done all three in under 24 hours, but I would have been fine with doing all of them, and just getting around all of them.
And again, I did the Paddy Buckley solo. [pauses] Or, do we class 20 minutes as paced? think we'll call it solo. [Jenny accompanied Luke for the final mile of his third leg, from the bottom of Moel Eilio through residential streets into Llanberis].
Jenny: because you can't nav your way out of a paper bag when it's on a street.
Luke: No. I tell loads of people this story. I've got lost in Keswick with a group of adults walking around Keswick Sports Centre. And I walked all around it. And it was really embarrassing.
Jenny: how did you choose the practical stuff, like where and when you started?
Luke: It's really nice that you can start what you want on the Paddy Buckley. I love that. Like, you choose what's good for you. So I started at Capel Curig because I wanted to do what's called the boundary leg first, which is the longest leg, and lots of people say it's the hardest leg, because it's very boggy. It wasn't as boggy as I thought it was going to be. I’d recce-d that leg, couple of weeks before.
Jenny: were there any things that you took forward from the Ramsay experience that you wanted to do the same again, or do differently?
Luke: Food was a key thing that I'd learned from the Ramsay Round. Didn't eat anything on the Bob Graham, basically. I had a slice of pizza and some chips at Honister, pretty much. And that that ruined me. Your body can't work without fuel, and I didn't put any fuel in it for 24 hours. And expected it to work, which was really stupid. Whereas with the Ramsay, I was eating, but not enough. This time with the Paddy Buckley, I was really able to eat. I was eating going up Moel Siabod [the first climb]. So 20 minutes in, I was eating food. And that that was the clincher, I think. Because you will always get to that point where you start to not want to eat, you can't eat.
And so you have to get it in early when you can, and then you don't have to battle as hard with lack of food. It's [the Paddy] a nice one because it's got so many checkpoints, hasn't it?
Jenny: which you did take advantage of to be able to eat stuff that you couldn't carry.
Luke: Yeah. I ate a lot of quite non-carriable food. Like, I had sandwiches and pizza and stuff. Don't be afraid to eat what you want. Don't read every running magazine that says gels are the way forward.
Jenny: what about the training? Anything different there?
Luke: I don't think so. I think I trusted you to do the right thing, in a really positive way that I knew that you were thinking about me. You know me well enough now to know what's gonna work for me. Know when to go, that's fine to do a long run from home as opposed to, come on, you need to get on the ground and actually do some rocky stuff now, which you told me to do. And you knew when to push and pull back and stuff like that. We're lucky we live close enough that you can or I can pop over in a day if we want to, or we go out for a run together and we can talk through something.
Jenny: Yeah. I found that really interesting to reflect on actually. It felt like, you know, we worked well together first time around. But second time around, knowing each other for two more years, it was so much easier to kind of figure out, as you say, when to push and when to pull back.
Luke: By the end of the Ramsay, we were friends, but at the start, we were coach and runner. If I'd chosen a different coach with a different style, either I would have found it very hard to say, you know what? I've done a 14 hour lambing shift. I don't want to go for a run. And some coaches probably would have gone, no, you need to go for your run because that's what you're paying me to do, is to get you running. And I would have pushed back on that. Whereas you were like, that's fine. I know you, and I know what you've done for the day.
Jenny: I sometimes think of it a bit like when you have a therapist that it has to be the right person, as well as the right methodology… if you don't click with the person it doesn't work very well.
Jenny: were there any particular high points or low points that really stand out?
Luke: I got up onto Snowdon at midnight, which is a very weird experience now, because there's still people on Snowdon at midnight. And then, through the slate quarries [after Llanberis], it's quite eerie at night. I actually had a plan for if someone came at me, what I'd do. I thought I'd shine my torch as bright as I could in their eyes, and hit them with my poles, and then run for it. And then because I was going so fast, we'd worked out that I'd get to dawn before the Glyders, but I got there in the dark. And that’s one of the high points for me, I really enjoyed going over the Glyders in the dark. I think it's always nice, isn't it, to go do something that you're like, yeah, I can do this. And it be proved to you by you that yeah, I can get over this safely. Scrambling up, down in the dark was quite fun. It was quite cool. Not a lot of people have done that, I imagine.
It suits my running style, Paddy and Ramsay especially. I don't I don't think I would do very well at a long 100k trail run, because either I get really bored, or I just can’t keep running on. Whereas if I have to run over an edge or work over some really complex ground or navigate hard for a section, I can do that really well.
Jenny: yeah – I think Paddy was so successful for you was because the nav was so good, and you were on-sighting great big sections. And, we couldn't believe the speed that you were moving in the dark on-sight.
Luke: I really enjoyed that, just having a piece of paper in my hand, and thumbing a map, and running.
Jenny: I remember, when you were coming down the bottom of Moel Eilio towards me in the dark, and you were just floating down it like you were on tarmac. It was really impressive.
Luke: Oh, thanks, Jenny. It just felt really good. Like I hate all that mumbo jumbo flow state shit. But it is true, annoyingly. Flow's amazing.
Jenny: How does it feel to be in the big three club within the first hundred as well?
Luke: It's quite good, isn't it? I'm really proud of that. I hate sounding really big-headed.
Jenny: It's not. You did a big thing. Three big things. Three big circles.
Luke: Totally pointless. It’s random circles. I'm really proud of being a member of that club, and having done it. And the last two, the ones that I wasn't familiar with, on my own with limited knowledge of the routes.
Jenny: Is there anything I didn't ask that you wanted to say about it?
Luke: I think the one thing I would say to anyone considering it, and that could be a runner or a mountain walker, a hill-going person. They're brilliant. All three are brilliant routes, and like, doing them over 5 days, a leg a day, that would be a brilliant thing to do.
Jenny: I think that's really important, actually. Like, people not thinking that it doesn’t count because it’s not sub-24.
Luke: Yeah. I think probably a lot of people could do a successful round. Let's call it a successful round. A successful round in over 24 hours and feel achievement. But they don't, because ‘I must do it under 24 hours’, so they’ll stop at Honister, or stop at Wasdale. And I bet you, if a number of those just cracked on and got going, they'd get to a point where they actually can do this. So yeah, do it your way. Walk over five days, or go for under 24 hours or, you know, go and break the record.
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