Oct
16
Rob Smith - Offa's Dyke In One Sitting - A new unsupported FKT
- eShop Account
- 16/Oct/2020 10:10
Offa’s Dyke in one sitting
At 5:26 September 11th, I set out from the
official start (or end) of the Offa’s Dyke trail in Prestatyn with the
intention of ‘running’ – some jogging, some hiking, A LOT of hobbling – the 177
miles to the other end of the trail at Sedbury Cliffs, just outside Chepstow. I
did finally get there, just over 3 days later, setting what is, for now, a
fastest known time for a self-supported completion of the trail.
I won’t go into the run itself here, suffice to say it was hard! And made
harder still by doing it entirely self-supported. I followed the strict Spine
race definition, and took no assistance or supplies from anyone or anywhere
that wasn’t available to the public. Shops and pubs and, as it turned out,
curry houses, were fair game. But other than that I was on my own. That meant
carrying all the kit I would need for the adventure and juggling that age old equation
of safety, redundancy and durability, against weight, weight, and weight. I’d
guess I bought 95% of kit from Up and Under; everything apart from shoes and
sleeping bag. I’m pleased to say that I used everything I took bar spare base
layers, and didn’t really want for anything bar more socks, as always… The shop
has developed a really good range of trail and ultra gear over the past couple of
years featuring some brands you don’t see so much of. So, here’s a breakdown of
what I took and how it fared.
Pack:
Raidlight Responsive 24l
The pack is the most important part of the kit, in my opinion. It’s the
interface between you and your gear. Too big and you’ll take too much kit with
you. Too small and you’ll either not take enough, or not get stuff out when you
need to because of the faff of unpacking everything. Any small rub or niggle
can really add up over long efforts of a couple of days. Packs for this sort of
gig range massively in weight and often that comes at the cost of durability. The
Raidlight pack was just outstanding. It’s not the cheapest (there’s that old
‘pick two’ saying…) but it’s probably the most comfortable pack I’ve run in.
Period. The ‘boa’ style adjusters at the side of the pack seem like a gimmick,
but they’re genius and allowed me to all but eliminate bounce with the pack
fully loaded with over 6kg when food and water supplies were full.
It absolutely swallows gear and seems to take way more than 24 litres. Surprisingly
easy to access the rear pockets without taking it off for stuffing away food,
gloves, poles, etc (there’s a handy chest pole holder that actually works,
too). The front pockets are really well thought out (I’ve had packs in the past
where I’ve genuinely not been able to work out what some of tiny pockets were
for…) and the water bottles fit really well. One gripe is that the straw type
bottles ‘slosh’ as you’re running. But as a wise man once said, if sloshing
water bottles are your main problem during an ultra, you’ve got it pretty good.
The durability of the pack is impressive too, and it shows hardly any signs of
the ordeal it went through with me. That’s even more impressive when you
consider it weighs less than 300g! At that weight, and given it also compresses
right down, I’d be more than happy to wear it for shorter faster ultras and mountain marathons. It’s a rare
thing in the world of increasingly specialised gear; a true all rounder, which
makes it pretty good value after all.
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