By: Darrel Porter.

Race Date: 10th October, 2026.

Race Distance: 22 miles.

Runners gathered at the start line a little before 9 am in Donnard Park, Newcastle, Northern Ireland. It was a bitterly cold morning, 4 degrees with a 65kph wind!

I was able to catch up with members of the UK Skyrunning team, I got a few tips for the route ahead, and after a short warmup we were squeezing into the starting funnel.

The race started at a decent pace through the park and then into the woods. We pretty quickly found ourselves climbing on wide fire trails before the route narrowed to rocky steps. The first climb was around 600m and served to spread out the field pretty quickly. I found myself in a group with Jason and John from the UK team. By the top of the first climb we reached open moorland with spectacular views over the Mournes National Park. Also this was my first view of the real climbs facing us.

The route was made up of 10 short (still several hundred meter) climbs and descents, each very sharp, with some averaging 35 degrees incline.

After a short descent on a twisted rocky and fast single trail we were at the first such climb. I quickly realised how tough this day was going to be. Using the stones of the Mourne wall which improbably climbed the mountains, I pulled myself up, saving my legs as much as possible. At the summit we plunged straight down again, only to immediately face the next punishing climb.

I summited Slieve Bearnagh only to be faced with a savage technical descent. The ground dropped away for 200m seemingly sheer granite gravel grass and slabs, there was no easy or obvious route down and everyone chose their own way. Right at the top, a rouge wind gust (afore-mentioned 65kph wind) caught me unawares, I stumbled and slipped on a granite slab (which it turns out has a rather effective cheese grater effect on the skin).

Unperturbed, I bounced back up, my hand and calf bleeding profusely, but otherwise unhurt. I did my best to attack the descent, but it was hard going and I was quite aware of the next climb directly after! All the time going down I was wondering just how horrible that would have been to climb…

The next was the last serious climb before the long steady descent to the single aid station at 15km. The descent was fast and a relatively technical single track, rocky and boggy in places. I chose to hold back a little here, as there was a lot of race ahead, and I was roughly on my target time.

The aid station was well supplied with cakes, sweets, fruit, hot soup, water and voom bars. I took a few minutes to eat, and refill my water. John and Jason caught me here, John barely stopped and raced ahead, Jason took his time.

I walked out of the aid station until I reached the only road section of the race, about 1 km of gently climbing road. It felt horrible, my pace was slow, but my legs were threatening to cramp the whole way. Another runner caught me, it was his first Skyrace, I quickly discovered that he was from Sheffield and we chatted for a while, before I dropped him again once the trail became technical and boggy. Once again the climbing started.

At some point I caught John, we chatted a bit and exchanged places for quite a while. We were closing on 20km and I was beginning to feel cramp setting in.

Suddenly we found ourselves facing Slieve Bearnagh again, this time we were going to be climbing the technical section. My heart dropped, this was going to be hard work.

Route finding was a real challenge and it was very easy to take a seemingly easy line, only to find yourself again at a very steep challenging section, this was by far the slowest section of the race. At the summit there was less that 10km to go. The descending and climbing was still relentless, I found leaping between the rocks safer than trying to descend on the slippery grass. At some point John, still just behind me, asked if this was the last climb. Sadly it was not.

A couple of climbs later I found what I was sure was to be the last climb, it was a steep relentless grind with plenty of hands-on rock moments. At the summit I told myself that it was all downhill from here, so I attacked the descent. Leaping the rocks, moving well, I dropped John and a few others in a small group that had formed. My mind refused to acknowledge the huge mountain directly ahead, but the further I descended, the more I realised that there was one more climb. Slieve Donnard, the highest peak in Northern Ireland at 850m, and very steep.

The route went directly up to the peak and then directly down. The climb was tough, made harder by the large numbers of hikers and the Mourne Sky trail runners that we’d caught. After an endless trudge up the steps I came to the summit. A brief rest, and then it was time to descend.

I chose to keep to the right on the grass off the steps. I initially this seemed like a great idea. I was able to move fast and there was nobody to bar my way. About halfway down my calves started cramp. I had to repeatedly stop and stretch them out, but that didn’t slow me down much. A little further and a misjudged line and very adverse camber saw me slip sideways and slide down the grass. I tried to stand but my whole left leg cramped. I couldn’t move. After a minute or two of trying to stretch it out and failing to move Jason caught-up and overtook me. Another minute and I realised that I was just going to have to try to run on it.

I hobbled to the steps and ran down as best I could, the cramp slowly easing. I caught Jason again and we ran together for a while but I was very aware that this final descent was going to be punishing (850m in one go). I passed Jason, but maybe it was an error, within a few hundred meters my hamstring cramped again. I stopped, stretched, ran, caught Jason again and the after another km cramped badly. I was forced to stop again for a few minutes. Runners passed checking that I was okay. I reassured them that it was just cramp.

Eventually it eased and I was able to run. I kept my pace a little more conservative, but caught all the runners who had passed me. Once we got to the fire road section about 2km from the finish I was able to open up my pace. Able to reach my 10k pace I cruised to the finish line, overtaking a couple of runners on the way to finish in 18th overall and 4th in age my finish time being 5:32:11. The race was won by local runner Tom Crudgington (Northern Ireland) in 3:43:55 and Carys Mai Hughes (Wales) in 4:33:17.

Strider’s Result: