Kirsty raced in the Tor de Geants race this year and I followed her progress via Allie Bailey's updates. Her stellar performance was so impressive. It's one of those races that's on my 'I'd theoretically love to do this but I'm not sure I'm capable' list. I wanted to speak to her for three reasons: I'm obsessed with reading and books and she's a commissioning editor for a very cool publisher, I love asking women about how they did an amazing thing, and she's a pointer owner which meant I was confident she'd be an excellent person to speak to (not biased at all!!).
I’d been working down south for various academic publishers for 20 years and then decided to move up to Cumbria for various reasons (including running) in 2018. I had been contributing to running and outdoor magazines and websites for years and I started doing a mix of freelance work after leaving my job in London to move north, which was either book editing or writing about running. A friend of a friend was looking for somebody to help with some freelance work, and they were involved with Vertebrate Publishing, who just happened to be looking for a commissioning editor, and it was the perfect role for me. The best bit of the job is undoubtedly the interesting people I speak to. We work with everybody from incredibly accomplished climbers to people who have taken up outdoor swimming or SUP to help their mental health and all have inspiring stories to tell. My days are probably a bit more boring than you’d imagine, mainly revolving around emails, spreadsheets, reading and feeding back on proposals and chapters, and market research, but occasionally I get out to meet up with authors or support them at events and festivals and I love that aspect of the job.
I usually have multiple books on the go and they’re usually quite different genres! I listen to audiobooks when I’m running or in the car and they are always non-fiction and generally either adventure stories or psychology based. I’m currently listening to Insanely Gifted by Jamie Catto and then I’ve got Not Too Late by Gwendolyn Bounds lined up and that’s fairly typical. I read a lot of adventure narratives at home and like a hard copy. My favourite book about an adventure is Emily Chappell’s Where There’s A Will. What I love about it, apart from the fact that Emily is such a brilliant writer, is that it’s so relatable and such a thoughtful insight into what goes through your head in long endurance challenges. All too often the elites make it sound so straightforward and easy but Emily, who achieved some incredible feats in cycling, is so honest about her doubts, insecurities and feelings and that there are moments when it’s absolutely shit, as well as beautiful and brilliant. There, I managed to recommend books that aren’t published by Vertebrate!
I was quite good at cross country at school but then didn’t really take it up again until I was about 30 (I’m 52 now). I did the classic thing of just starting to jog around the block, which felt unimaginably hard, and then entered Nottingham Half Marathon which I think took me about 2hrs 20. I kept plugging away, entering Abingdon Marathon a couple of years later and then found a brilliant running club and started to take it a bit more seriously. I kept trying to get my half marathon and marathon times down, but I found it was trail running that I really loved. Once I found my tribe it became a really big part of my life.
It had a very small progression from a marathon – I did a 30 mile ultra on the South Downs. I absolutely loved it and can vividly remember thinking that I would definitely feel terrible once I got into unknown territory over 26 miles, but I actually felt pretty good and I think that’s what did it for me. It was like I’d discovered a secret world of ultrarunning (it wasn’t as popular back then!) and cracked the code to find they didn’t hurt as much as marathons. And after years of trying to go faster I really enjoyed the challenge of going further instead.
I grew up in the Peak District and even when I lived down south I generally gravitated towards the Lake District for holidays. So I’d say that I liked hills and mountains but it was running that really instilled a love of mountains for me. I started going out to Chamonix to do races around 2010 and the scale of the landscape and the running culture blew my mind. I’ve done a lot of mountain races and running trips over the years in Italy, France, Switzerland and Spain and I absolutely love spending time in those places. I now try to travel less to overseas races for environmental reasons, so try to pick one big race a year, which will always be in the mountains! But we do have very good mountains in the UK too.
In the past I’d put both Dragon’s Back and TdG (Tor de Geants) into the category of ‘races I’d dream of doing but never really felt good enough to enter’. But it was just a steady progression of races that made me feel like I could give them a go. I did the Cape Wrath Ultra in 2018 and actually found that multidays suited me. Dragon’s Back is organised by the same company and at the time they guaranteed you a place in it if you had completed Cape Wrath. I remember leaving it until the very last day of the entry deadline and I was definitely swayed by a couple of my friends who’d entered, but I went ahead and put my name in for Dragon’s Back. Then I did a lot of recces, a lot of specific training on rough terrain in the Lakes, a lot of ascent and a lot of navigation practice. And I practised going over Crib Goch, which I very nearly bottled! I felt confident I’d given myself as good a chance as possible to complete it, but it still depends on so many factors like managing your feet and kit, nutrition, injury, sleep, sensible pacing etc. Completing Dragon’s Back gave me a lot more confidence in my running and I did the Northern Traverse in 2022, which is a non-stop 300k race. Again, that format seemed to suit me, which gave me the confidence to try TdG, which is a 330k non-stop mountain race. In both cases I did feel that the races were at the very edge of what I could possibly do, which was partly the draw for me. And definitely in the case of TdG the impetus to enter was partly a case of ‘if not now, when?’. In some ways it’s harder to do these things in your 50s than it is in your 40s (though I’d argue in other ways you are better equipped in your 50s, eg experience, pacing, self-management) and it will only get harder every year!
I’d always say to people doing Dragon’s Back that recceing is so important. Having that knowledge of what’s coming, and the confidence in navigating, really helps you to keep things calm and know how to manage your effort. The cut-offs can really catch you out, no matter how experienced you are, and all it can take is leaving camp a bit late one morning, picking up an injury, getting lost, falling into step with a slower runner, stopping for too long at a checkpoint or shop and that’s it! I think the more you try to eliminate any of the things you can control by being super organised and recceing the route, the better your chances.
The race I’ve loved the most is definitely Tor de Geants. The route is absolutely stunning and the places you pass through – mountain refuges, small mountain communities, beautiful old towns – and the whole community around it is very special. I also really loved Ehunmilak, a 100 miler in the Basque Country, which is unspoilt by big sponsors and steeped in local tradition. And there are so many great UK race companies delivering brilliant experiences with lovely routes and a great community, like Ascend Events or NAV4 in the Lake District. In general I really enjoy the races that feel special and unspoilt, so I’m very unlikely to do a UTMB race in the future. I don’t want to name names on races I’ve hated but anything with poor organisation, poor routes and big entry fees that seem unwarranted doesn’t do it for me.
I’ve DNFd plenty of races, including the Northern Traverse this year. From that I learned that you really need to have a big ‘why’ to do a race in order to keep going when things get tough. I’d run it the year before and completed it, and it was such a great experience that I decided to enter it again this year. I thought my ‘why’ was to try to put into practice what I’d learned the year before and do it faster. But the weather was horrible – we had a storm and it was some of the worst conditions I’ve ever run in – and I just didn’t want it enough to continue in those conditions. I think if I hadn’t completed it the year before I’d have had a big enough reason to continue, but I just didn’t. I’m fine with that decision because it had been a miserable experience up to that point, I didn’t want to just finish at all costs and I wasn’t enjoying it. So what I learned was that you need a really big ‘why’! And I learned that having a really clear set of ground rules about reasons to stop is really important if you want to live with your decisions afterwards. And it’s ok to say ‘I am really not enjoying this and want to stop’.
I’d known Robbie Britton for a few years through working at Run247.com and I’d become friends with him and his wife, Natalie. At the time they were living in Chamonix and I was going out there a lot to run, race and dog sit for them, so I think it just became an organic thing that he was going to coach me. This was about 10 years ago now I think. Before that I was coached by Mimi Anderson for a short time (to do UTMB) and she was brilliant. I like having a coach because I like the accountability and I like somebody having the bigger picture in mind, when I can get a bit bogged down in how I feel about my running from day to day. Robbie is incredibly knowledgeable, but it’s very much a two-way thing. He lets me make my own decisions about things like races and deviating from the plan, but he’ll ask me the right questions to allow me to come to the decision. Contrary to what some people think about having a coach, Robbie is generally coaching me towards less running and without him I would definitely not do enough of the quality sessions. I have so much faith in Robbie and that’s really important too. He’s always got my best interests at heart and he’s just a really good person who genuinely wants to help people. He’s hilarious too and I’d count him as a really valued friend.
Most of the time Robbie will put in a couple of weeks at a time, though it may be more if we’re getting close to a race. I fill in what I did and how it felt, then every Sunday we check in and tweak for the week ahead if needed. A normal week for me would be something like an interval session, a hill session, a long run and 3 easy runs. I don’t count miles but I look at hours and, if training for a hilly race, elevation.
I do strength work, though not as consistently as I should in general. For TdG I knew I needed to do more so I went to Paul Tierney (at Body Rehab in Staveley) and he assessed me and then wrote me a specific programme to work on the elements I’d need for the race, which he’s done (as well as the bigger Tor des Glaciers) multiple times. We worked on loading the muscles and tendons that I’d be hammering on the long ascents and descents with very specific exercises rather than heavy lifting. It worked really well for me. In general I do a bit of yoga and some regular strength work at home, but I know I need to do more.
I think mental preparation takes on lots of forms! Studying the map, recceing, working out what you might need at particular checkpoints for a boost, reading blogs about a race, it’s all mental prep. Probably the biggest mental prep I do is thinking of all the things that can go wrong (nausea, getting lost, getting injured, being in pain etc) and what I’ll do if/when that happens. I write a lot of notes to myself and go through them in the days leading up to the race. I think that the more ultras you do, the more you experience all the challenges, and the more that equips you to deal with it the next time. I haven’t ever seen a sports psychologist but I have interviewed a lot of them over the years and I read a lot of books about psychology. I pick up bits from different people and implement what works for me.
I manage my race nutrition terribly! I always start out with a solid plan but I seem to forget that it goes to shit every single time because humans aren’t machines. TdG was the perfect example of this. I sat down with Renee McGregor (one of our authors and a friend of mine) and planned out my race nutrition, I made a bag for each checkpoint, with carefully thought about amounts of carbs and protein, and then within a day I just didn’t want to eat any of it because I felt sick. Obviously I had to turn that around if I wanted to keep going, so after exchanging a few voice notes with Renee we came up with a new plan (which actually revolved more about drinking and taking on salt than about actual food initially) and I turned it around to a degree. But I would have made my life much easier in the race if I had just stayed on top of hydration and salt sensibly from the start and had a wider variety of food in my pack, rather than trying to stick to my plan. I never really have a problem with nutrition when out on long days in the hills, but I seem to struggle in races when working at a higher intensity (or, in the case of TdG, at altitude) and I stress myself out by trying to adhere to a plan. In general though, my favourite sports nutrition products are Veloforte chews and Precision Hydration PF 90 gel, but in terms of real food it’s soup (this has saved me on so many races), cheese sandwiches, focaccia, mini battenburgs, Nutella B-Ready bars and Fruitella.
I’m really choosy about my races these days so by definition they are ones I really want to do, which is a great start. I used to just do them like a tick box exercise, to say that I’d done them, but now I don’t want to travel as much overseas, I’m older and a realist that I might not be able to do these hard races forever, and there aren’t that many left that I still really want to do. So I want to enter races that are in stunning places, are challenging in terms of distance and terrain, offer me the chance of a nice weekend away or holiday and will give me a good sense of satisfaction at the end. I want races that’ll give me amazing memories, rather than just doing something to say I’ve done it or because everybody else does it! I think it’s really important to choose races that really motivate you, slightly scare you, are special in some way and that you have a really big ‘why’ to complete. In the social media age it’s easy to feel like we should be doing something because others are. I hate the cold, so I’m probably never going to do the Spine and that’s fine with me. I like mountains so I’m always going to gravitate towards those races, whereas other people prefer runnable trails. I see so many people DNFing because they didn’t really commit to the training or didn’t respect the race and I think that’s sometimes because you didn’t really want to do it enough in the first place!
I’ve discovered a lot of races through word of mouth, through reading about them in books, running websites and blogs and just via the running community. But now there are so many good listings websites (eg SiEntries, Ultra Runner Magazine, Run247) where you can learn about races I’ve never heard of. It’s almost too much information now! But I think that’s good because I never want there to be a situation where somebody new is coming into the sport and gets the impression that to find a race you go to the UTMB website.
I’m really inspired by anybody who commits to anything and works hard to achieve it. Like everybody, I found Jasmin’s amazing run at the Barkley hugely inspiring because she worked so hard on so many different elements to achieve it. She wasn’t the first woman to complete it because she was fastest or ran the most miles in training, she did it because she studied it, assessed what she needed to work on, committed to it, gave it everything. Plus she’d built up her experience (navigation, nutrition, pacing) and her endurance over years and years. It was the culmination of years of stacking all these things up and we forget that. I meet people who are inspiring to me every day. When I did TdG I met somebody who’d turned their life around after years addicted to heroin and crystal meth. I find people who are honest with themselves and others inspiring, whether that’s to accept they have a problem with something or to accept that they need to work on something in their running, then they get on and do it! All too often I see people heralded as inspiring on social media (sometimes by themselves), then I look at their Strava to see the difference between what they say they’re doing and what they’re actually doing, and I think ‘no’. I gravitate towards the humble people who inspire through actions, not words.
Gilbert, my German Pointer, is the love of my life, but he is hard work. His claim to fame is that he’s had to have the injection to make him sick four times, due to things he’s eaten. His crimes were, in order: sock, glove, sock, grapes. It’s always expensive socks and gloves, so I get them back and rinse them off. I loaned that pair of gloves to a friend and she was pretty grossed out that one of them had been in Gilbert’s stomach.
I’m doing the brilliant Tour de Helvellyn (NAV4) just before Christmas, but no other plans yet. I didn’t want to have anything other than TdG to think about and I’m just about getting to the point where I want to do another big one next year. Not sure what yet though.
I’d say recovery from Tor de Geants has felt like recouperation from a medium sized illness. Physically my legs and feet were fine (no blisters) but the fatigue was next level and mentally it was tough. It was hard to process everything I’d seen and experienced and your sense of time and reality gets so warped in those long races. I think it’s important to write it all down as you’re remembering stuff and try to make sense of it and I’m still doing that now. It took a few weeks for my sleep to get back to normal and I was just hungry all the time for 2 – 3 weeks. I didn’t adapt my work but I don’t think I was super productive in that first week afterwards…
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