28th and 29th June 2025

My race

The RSR had always tempted me, an entry for the postponed and then cancelled 2020 version was never taken up, and in successive years it had always passed me by despite basically going past my front door! This year an entry and a plan was cooked up for me to do it in a pair with someone who I went to university with. It was a good plan, with them training for the Manchester marathon and in 2:35 shape, and me going well and hopefully able to leverage a bit more trail experience and local knowledge!

Unfortunately the plan began to fall apart a bit a month out when I picked up an ankle injury. Facing having to stay in touch with a much faster partner was looking very daunting, until a couple of weeks beforehand when my partner had to pull out of the pair. Nursing the ankle injury in I managed to get to the start line in OK physical condition but mentally all over the place and having no idea of what time/pace/plan to go for.

I knew the route quite well, especially the first couple of stages and I’d done a recce long run around the whole thing. The weather was hot & stuffy on the Saturday, even on the early ‘elite’ wave. The course was dry all the way around, making for some fast running underfoot. I know that shoe choice is often a hotly discussed aspect of RSR-I opted for a trail shoe (saucony endorphin rift) but there were lots of road-going super shoes being worn. My mum and dad wanted to come over and spectate so I had a full support crew-which felt pretty special and gave me a proper boost on the way round!

Stage 1

Setting off was odd, I’ve run stage 1 so much in parkrun and general runs, but I’ve never done it all at once and never at pace. Adding in the stop/start of the road crossings and it was hard to judge the effort but I felt pretty good and got into the rhythm of it quite quickly. I saw my wife and daughter in Bingham park which gave me a nice boost and I was rewarded with the overall 19th fastest time up there and was feeling pretty good!

Stage 2

I knew stage 2 was going to be very hard as I’ve done this stretch a lot. The drag up the porter valley was a proper slog on the day. It was hot and close all the way up, and hard to overtake with the small speed differentials and everyone already getting worn down. I’m in awe of the guys setting the fastest times up there, the speed & endurance and technical ability to do that is amazing, especially when it gets to the top and the stairs! The tough run to the top for me was reflected in having the 52nd best time on this stage. At the top of the stage I met my mum and dad who did the walk to the next stage with me while I downed an energy gel and a water.

Stage 3 and 4

Stages 3 and 4 melded together in the long downhill rush. This was much more my style and I knew I’d put in a great run down the limb valley (14th best time) as no one caught me and I made a big gap up to the people in front. I can see why its most people’s favourite stage! Ecclesall woods wasn’t quite as good (24th best time) but I followed a very fast HRRC pair (who finished 2nd male pair) through here and hung on for as long as I could to them. Talking about shoe selection – one of the pair wearing road super shoes had a twisted ankle during stage 4. It looked pretty bad but they recovered well for the next stage and it didn’t seem to affect them the rest of the way around! At this point I was in a good group with Jed Turner, the HRRC pair and a few others. Recovery from stage 4 was a nice walk with my wife and daughter again for some of it, and then up those stairs

Stage 5,6,7

On stage 5 I knew I was in trouble, I was following Blue Ultrafly Guy (sorry I never got his name!) out of the start, he offered to let me go through but on the technical singletrack my legs just weren’t responding or moving as fast as I needed! He gradually went away from me in the middle of the stage and the HRRC pair came flying past. A surprise extra sighting of family at the Abbey worked wonders though and I finished stronger-closing back up to Blue Ultrafly Guy again (55th overall stage time).

I knew from my recce that this part of the course is surprisingly tough (everyone knows about stage 2 but I think this part is more critical to a good time!) and given how stage 5 had gone I was worried about shipping a lot of time. Stages 6 and 7 carried on in the same vein (71st and 99th overall times) and I began to doubt whether I’d be able to actually finish. However I knew the feedstop was coming up and there were a few downhill stages after stage 7 so kept pushing through. At the feedstop and transition I walked with my Dad and an emergency lucozade perked me up for stage 8.

Stage 8 & 9

Stage 8 was much better, the gentle downhill and flowing trails made for a much better stage, even if my legs couldn’t deal too well with the technical sections (52nd best time), after another transition walk with dad and another gel it was onto stage 9-the insane downhill one! The downhill stages had been my strength so far but this non-technical headlong rush wasn’t my style and with the legs not where they needed to be I didn’t have the confidence to fully send it (89th best time).

Stage 10 & 11

A hard stage 10 but made much better in the knowledge that it’s the last proper stage and you can pretty much empty the tank here. The ankle had held up and I had a good set of people in front of me to follow who I could gradually catch and overhaul. I knew I couldn’t time trial this on my own, but switching to trying to compete with those around me made it much easier to push the pace as much as possible. This was my worst stage position at 127th overall, but I knew I was going to get around at this point and everything just felt quite a lot easier.

Trying to turn the legs over for the final time on Stage 11 wasn’t easy (107th best time) – but that final straight onto the grass felt great and it was nice to finally hand the dibber in and get the results immediately.

Overall

Overall I was 44th position, looking at the individual stage results I’d definitely exploited the big downhill stages into time gained and suffered on the 5/6/7 loop. However it was great to get around and I was also pretty much exactly where I expected to be timewise. I’d spent a great deal of time trying to plan seeing people at transitions and my estimates were pretty spot on! My hot take is that I think that racing the RSR is harder than the Sheffield Half-the intensity of the stages and the length of time on feet made it super tough!

I really enjoyed the day out, big thanks to Jed, the lads from HRRC, Aaron Francis and all the others in the group who were circulating in the Saturday red group at the same time as me. I’ve definitely got the bug for it, it’s one that is going straight in the calendar for next year!

Striders and overall

There was a Strider overall winner as Annie Chambers was the fastest female around the course in 1:21:45. Fastest man was Phillip Morris (Clowne RR) in 1:07:49. In the pairs Samuel Moakes/George Phillips were the fastest MPair (and fastest of everyone) in 1:06:40, Laura Goy/Becky Raftery were fastest FPair in 1:23:01 and the mixed pairs was won by Claire and David Frankland of West End Runners.

Striders ended up with the 3rd male and female teams, and finished first in the mixed team classification! Category podiums were also achieved for Jed Turner (2nd MV60), John Nicholson (2nd MV70), Hannah Shilitoe and Sarah slater (3rd FPair) and Leah Elton/Jack Chapman (2nd MPair).

There were 3100 finishers over the whole weekend.

Strider results