I wanted to write a report for this event, because I did it for very particular reasons and, in the end, it might be my last ‘ultra’ (at least for a while).

First off, the race is named after Lady Anne Clifford (1590-1676). She appears to have been a very formidable lady and feminist of her time. She was brought up by her mum and fought for forty years to get her rightful inheritance when her dad left it to a male cousin. Once she got it (by the men dying out), she left London and went home to Yorkshire whereupon she started a programme of castle and church repairing. The only slight downer to all this was a description of her as a ‘benevolent despot’ (?!) and on a record of a particular week’s spending, she only gave about £5 equivalent to a poor person who came to her castle door. You can read all about her here.

The route joins together various castles that she restored and lived in as she travelled around, so not only would I be following in the footsteps of such a strong woman, I’d also get to indulge in several castles too! Cromwell is said to have told his troops not to bother attacking them since she didn’t have an army, which is perhaps why some are still standing so well.

Lastly, the event is run by Joe Faulkner and his Nav4 team, so it’s low key, low fuss, sensible kit list, good food at the checkpoints.

I’ve been in no running shape at all really, plagued by issues physical and psychological, so this race was all about completing, not competing – with a view to it being a swansong before converting (or is it returning?) to more of a cycling focus for a while.

Skipton Castle – Lady Anne’s birthplace and race start

I made sure I arrived early enough the day before to get a good tour of Skipton castle. Cold, draughty and a little bare, but very intact with some impressively thick walls and a yew tree in the courtyard that she’d planted herself.

The start

The race begins at a fairly civilised hour, though still too early for the B&B breakfast. It felt a bit weird to be lining up and only wearing a ‘normal’ ultra running backpack – I think the last time I did this was at the Lavaredo Ultra Trail in June 2023. The signs featured a cool creature, which I think is a design of a door knocker on the castle at Brougham, where Lady Anne died. This is the closest we got to this feature, as the race misses out the final stretch of the official Lady Anne’s Way (for reasons of length and interest of the trails).

I did the first section a bit faster than I anticipated, getting carried along talking to a few people; Hello to everyone I ran with! I had done some of it with Andy over Christmas, although this time round was significantly speedier despite not having the dog for ‘help’ … 🤔 Some of my photos on the route were taken then, when I was being more leisurely and had my decent phone on me. Lots and lots of stiles, gates and a bit of open moorland, with it being easier going for the race as we’d had less rain.

Barden Tower

The next ‘castle’ on the route was Barden Tower, a smaller and more ruinous affair than Skipton. You can read about the history on the sign. This marked the start of a long stretch following the River Wharfe all the way to the next moorland crossing after Grassington.

Grassington and on to first main checkpoint at Kettlewell

Apart from some slight concern about how much running was ‘possible’ and that I therefore felt compelled to do, the next section passed quite nicely. The river is really lovely and I got chatting to a little group going over the second, more significant, hill of the race. I lost people as I did a minor detour to get a photo at the trig point! 😂 I did the last bit coming into the campsite on my own, and took the opportunity to use the facilities and get a bit of soup. I was keen to avoid blisters on my feet, so I also spent some time putting fleecy web on some hot spots and slathering some more Squirt balm all over them. The slightly alarming thing was seeing how few drop bags were left … despite being far away from any kind of cut off (the only one is at the end of the race, but I was well inside the pace needed for that).

Kettlewell to Askrigg

No castles on this section, sadly!! I started off feeling really rough, like I had already missed a night’s sleep. I was nauseous, really over-warm, but not sweating. When this has happened before, fluids have been the answer. I started knocking back some electrolytes and plodded on.

At Buckden, two people caught me up after going the wrong way. I decided to try and keep up with them for a morale boost. They turned out to be Anna & Sean – great company, a laugh and they let me tag along all the way to Askrigg. I felt SO much better, and they were keeping me going along at a nice pace. It got dark somewhere on a hill, and the nav got a bit trickier as we tried to cross the fields and find the stone stiles in the stone walls on the other side.

I had strapped my dodgy ankle up at the start with two pieces of Leukotape (zinc oxide tape) for stability. This had been a debated decision given I’d had some sort of pressure reaction to that and my compression socks at Christmas, but I’d tested again since without any problems. Somewhere along here I became conscious it was beginning to pull a bit, but it wasn’t all that bad.

The second main checkpoint was indoors and I got a good feed, more lube on my feet (didn’t notice anything too amiss) and set off again, still with Anna and Sean. I did forget to brush my teeth or take my blue inhaler, but didn’t think either were a disaster.

Askrigg to Winton via Pendragon Castle and Lammerside Castle

I suddenly started to struggle with the pace soon after leaving. Sean was pushing ahead, and although Anna was still keen to chat I told her they should just go if they wanted to. We got to a vehicle checkpoint and I was out of breath … the lady there was slightly concerned and I knew I just had to back off a bit.

Despite this, I was still in touching distance up the next big hill. It was as if I could hold a steady gap, but would then just lose a bit of ground and not be able to close it again.

By some stoke of luck, we then came across birthday boy Michael – after a while they pulled away from him, I caught up and we got chatting. We ended up staying together all the way to the end, for which I was very grateful!!

We rejoined a section I’d done before again, which was mentally helpful. Having been way too hot for most of the race, it suddenly got really cold on an exposed section, which spurred me on a bit! After going from ‘dangerously cold’ at the top to ‘just uncomfortably cold’ at the bottom, I stopped and got my waterproof trousers on. I was alarmed that even the touch of them on my ankle was sore … what?

As this section went on, it was getting more and more painful and I decided I would just have to stop at the next vehicle point and take the tape off.

Before then … we passed Pendragon Castle which was another of Lady Anne’s. Sadly, on the other side of the river and much too far to detour to! And a bit later on, Lammerside Castle, which wasn’t one of hers, but which I poked around when I was there before – still had some roof, which is a lot compared to some I’ve visited, although it all looks a bit wobbly from the outside 😲.

In between the two castles, we got to the vehicle point. Michael kindly waited whilst I sat down to take the tape off my ankle. I thought it would be a simple case of remove it, get instant relief, and go. Well … there was relief, but there was also some very angry, red and slightly weepy skin. Not to worry, I took some caffeine and paracetamol, and we set off in good spirits to the checkpoint. I think we were still moving well, despite being a bit footsore by then.

Final leg – Winton to Appleby Castle, via Brough Castle

At the checkpoint I was horrified to find my leg looking a lot worse, with a big blister forming over the top of my sock. I decided to clean and burst that and some others, put some fleecy web on and pop a longer clean sock over. All that done and some food taken (thanks again to Michael for choosing to wait for me), we set off. It actually felt ‘OK’ for the rest of the event, much better than it had before I’d taken the tape off. I got some bad blisters on my little toes, one of which exploded agonisingly before going numb…

For some reason, we were moving a lot slower once we left the checkpoint. Maybe something to do with the time of day (about 3-4am), our sore feet, the vagueness of the path across fields and the preponderance of stiles that were getting harder and harder to climb over. Michael had actually done a recce of the entire route, which proved very helpful on this whole last leg.

We went past Brough Castle in the dark (I couldn’t even see it) but I was told it was there and ‘quite impressive’. I went back the next day to take a look and it was well worth it!!

We passed the final vehicle point, and it was good to know it was actually further than advised, else it might have been quite demoralising, especially given our pace! I hoped things might improve once it got light, but I think we were both working hard just to get to the end by then. I tried to repay Michael’s overnight support by geeing him on with regular words of enthusiasm as we counted down the km … not sure how well received they were though!!

Eventually we made it to … Appleby! Where my friend Chloe was waiting to save me and whisk me off to the final castle!!

Appleby Castle

Like Skipton, Appleby Castle is super well preserved, but is also inhabited and currently in use as a hotel. As a super special treat, I’d booked us in for the night. It was a good job I did have someone there to help me and not very far to go, because once I got in and took off my trousers and socks it was quite a sight that awaited me. I won’t go into gory details, the best description is probably of partial thickness burns right round my highly swollen lower leg. Suffice to say that 4 weeks later it’s well on the mend, but not after significant pain and a nasty infection that I only just caught in time.

More cheerfully … we had a rather quirky reception at the castle itself. I admired the extensive collection of furniture that Lady Anne herself would have used, slept in one of her 4-poster beds, ate in her dining room, looked at her family portraits and (slowly) wandered the grounds the next day. When the wind blew overnight, I could sense the solidity of the building. I loved the whole experience!!

Post Race

If anything, the issues with trying to stabilise my ankle only served to make me more comfortable with my decision to focus on cycling this year. I’m not keen to rush back to ultra running, and I’m certainly never sticking tape on again! I’ve got a big gravel event coming up in Iceland in the summer, followed by Itera-Lite. OK, I’ll need to be on foot for some of that, but unlikely for 125km, nor for over 26h!!

Finally, all long races should finish like this … I don’t know what Lady Anne liked eating, but hopefully she would approve.