I love running. But if I’m honest, I only really love running once per week.

The times I’ve dedicated myself to a real, concerted running block – three to four sessions per week, properly structured, properly periodised – I haven’t enjoyed it. It would be tempting to say I haven’t got time, but the truth is, it’s just not a priority for me.

I’m at a stage in my fitness where training has to enrich my life, not take from it. So while I do love running, it’s a love affair that warrants precisely one run per week.

That’s why, when I was approached by The North Face to tackle the Transgrancanaria Advanced race – an 81km mountain ultra across some seriously brutal terrain, with just short of 5,000 metres of elevation – my initial reaction was to say no. I couldn’t prioritise running enough to make the race feel doable.

But before I pinged off a polite decline, I slept on it. The next morning I found myself thinking: I do want to experience the race – could I really run a mountain ultra while only running once per week?

This piqued my curiosity. Not just the event, the experiment. With just over two months to go, I said yes.

No Margin for Error

Confining your training to such a small amount can make it feel more achievable. All you need to do is get out and run once a week. But if that run doesn’t happen, you lose 100% of your mileage for that week. This happened more than once.

Travel, work, life – all took priority. Towards the end of the block – as my training mileage gradually crept higher enough – each run became a massive undertaking in itself. Sessions that meant leaving the house at 6am and not getting back until lunchtime. A few of those fell off the radar. Survivable if your programme consists of different runs all neatly distributed. But when it’s just one, the stakes are higher.

The Transgrancanaria (TGC) is technically a running race, but in reality it’s more like a mountain-climbing event with sections of running stitched in between. That level of elevation change demands strength, resilience, and the ability to keep producing force in the face of growing fatigue.

Outside of my weekly run, I made sure the rest of my training supported the task: step-ups, lunges, loaded carries, ad nauseam – building the posterior chain and the ability to keep driving forwards and upwards again and again.

I still had doubts. Legendary climber and coach Mark Twight once wrote that when it comes to endurance training, there’s ‘no free lunch’. You have to do the long miles. You can’t just truncate it into faster, harder sessions. I was doing everything else I could, but I wasn’t doing the mileage. The spector of Twight’s words followed me on every run.

Administrative Errors

In the week leading up to the race, I didn’t run at all, save for a 15km interval session punctuated with tyre flips and sandbag cleans. I believe that kind of work is indispensable for an endeavour like this. I was training my legs to run under fatigue, to take a pounding and keep on going.

Arriving in Gran Canaria I was looking forward to catching a tan as a bonus for the expedition, but a few nights before the race, a text had come through warning us to pack winter kit. The mountain conditions had turned. It had rained so heavily they’d had to reroute parts of the course due to landslides. I smiled reading it.

‘Conditions are always optimal’, a friend of mine loves to say. You’re either going to have a good time… or get a good story.

On the coach to the start line on the north side of the island, I felt relaxed, but still slightly pensive. I knew I had a huge day on the legs ahead.

Then the admin errors began.

Pulling my running vest from the overhead compartment, my sunglasses had dropped out. What I didn’t realise until about 15 minutes before the start was that I’d also lost all of my gels.

Most of my planned carbohydrate intake for what could be up to 22 hours on the move was now sitting idly on a shelf. Shit.

Still, there were aid stations – six or seven of them across the course. There would be food there. I’d toyed with the idea of running the whole thing using only what the stations provided anyway, after survival expert Aldo Kane had told me he’d run a record-breaking high-altitude marathon on barely more than a couple of Clif bars. I’m no Aldo Kane, though, so I’d put that thought to bed. Until now.

Back of the Pack

I was joined on the race by Emily, our social media manager. While the rest of The North Face team slotted themselves somewhere more central in the field, I made the call that we should move to the back. I didn’t want to get in the way of any ‘serious runners’ as we jostled out of the blocks.

The klaxon sounded. The front runners disappeared. The middle of the pack began to flow. The rest of us shuffled after them. And almost immediately, the climbing began.

Steep uphill roads wound through the village of Teror, up towards the mountain trails proper. More than 6,000 people were taking part across four days of racing – but crammed into narrow roads and trails, it felt like all 6,000 of us were on this one route. Each tight turn or narrow path created a queue. The rain continued to turn the ground into slippy, clay-like mush. Less confident runners were picking their way gingerly down every small hill. On multiple occasions, we were halted for minutes at a time.

We had a ‘Plan A’, that would see us finish in around 16 hours. We also had a ‘Plan F’, which would see us just scraping the cut-off times for each aid station. Miss one of those, and your race is over.

Plan A had already gone the way of the Dodo – but as we stood and waited at various backed up ‘pinch points’, even Plan F began to slip away.

I found a section wide enough to overtake and told Emily I’d push on ahead and get food and drink sorted at the first checkpoint so we could blow straight through. I attacked the next stretch hard. There were some four-ish-minute kilometres in there – not blisteringly fast, but risky when 80 kilometres of mountainous terrain still lays ahead. I’d be informed later that I overtook around 250 people between the next few checkpoints.

I narrowly made the station and began getting supplies ready, but before long I was ushered out.

In my rush, worried about Emily, I didn’t think too hard about it. I tried calling and texting. Then I looked at my watch and realised that if I wanted any hope of getting back on schedule, I had to keep moving.

It’s All Uphill from Here

Obviously I knew this race was going to involve some serious incline. But I wasn’t mentally prepped for how relentlessly steep it would be. At around the half-marathon mark I hit one of the most absurd hills I’ve ever encountered. A long village road so steep it would be a first gear job in any car I’ve ever driven.

My glutes and hamstrings were burning. I told myself one thing: slow down if you need to, but don’t stop. I settled into the best pace I could sustain without blowing up. There were bodies draped over walls all the way up – runners who’d attacked the hill too hard, been utterly defeated and left struggling to recover. Everyone else shuffled on in silence. It was grotesque, but hilarious. We looked less like ultra-runners than pensioners out for an especially casual afternoon shuffle.

By the second aid station, I’d clawed back a lot of time. I stuffed some more figs into my vest, refilled my bottles, and wolfed down a cardboard tray of paella. Conventional running advice says never do anything new on race day. This was about as new as it gets. But I do take some pride in having trained my stomach over the years. Pre-race pizza has long been a ritual, and enough 24-hour challenges featuring McDonald’s or Domino’s midway through have taught me that my gut is more adaptable than most.

That doesn’t mean it hasn’t occasionally sent me on a one-way trip to Chundersville. I just have confidence that I can go there and keep moving afterwards.

My legs, meanwhile, were getting heavy. And still, the real mountains hadn’t even started.

Mind Games

The route climbed out of the villages and into the mountains proper, and what had already felt steep suddenly became heinous. I looked back down into the valley and realised I’d already covered some serious elevation.

Then I looked ahead.

Far off in the distance – thrusting defiantly upwards, like a middle finger to the heavens – stood Roque Nublo, one of Gran Canaria’s iconic landmarks, and a key point on the course. It marked the end of the elevation. After that, I knew, the work would tilt in my favour.

But from here, it looked a very long way away.

The mountain paths wound up and up and up. Usually, I don’t have much trouble with internal monologue. I’m quite happy to let thoughts come and go. I’ve largely trained out that little voice that appears when fatigue begins ‘making cowards of us all’.

It was strange to hear it begin. ‘Don’t you want to stop for a piss?’, ‘Wouldn’t it make sense to sort your electrolytes now?’, ‘Why don’t you rest a moment so you can move quicker, later?’

This backseat driver was calling me to the negotiation table.

I told myself: ‘This is the version of me that doesn’t finish this race speaking’.

The rain drove hard and sideways with a harsh bite. I pushed on into some of the hardest running I’ve ever done in my life; at some of the slowest paces I’ve ever seen on my watch. I had trail poles and half the time, I felt like I was hauling my whole body uphill with them. I couldn’t see an end to the climb, so I kept my eyes down.

By the third aid station, around 35km and 2,300m of elevation in, I’d scored back enough time to arrive with more than an hour to spare. I refilled my bottles, ate a bowl of spaghetti, said ‘gracias’ to the volunteers, pocketed more prunes and biscuits, and pushed out.

The rain lifted for a brief window and I began to notice the more immediate landscape: succulents, cacti, agave; tenacious, hardy life, enduring in impossible places. Very motivating.

There was a deep river crossing where two women had stopped, looking around for an alternative route, convinced this couldn’t be the way. I’d heard someone mention it the day before. I knew the obstacle was the way. I smiled at them, and ploughed waist deep straight through. Refreshing.

Sunset Above the Clouds

Later, I caught up with a man running the classic 126km race. He’d started at midnight the night before, meaning he already had 40km in the bank by the time he reached by 9am start line. We ran together for a while, talking when the trail flattened and shutting up when it reared upward again.

By now dusk was beginning to settle in, the sun was drenching the valley below in an orange hue. I realised, though, from the narrow mountain path I was traversing, I was watching the sunset from above the clouds.

It’s cheesy, but it’s these moments that make me ‘believe in fitness’. I got to experience this because I was physically able to place myself there. That, more than anything, is why I train: to experience my limits deliberately, so I don’t accidentally limit my experiences.

But as the sun dropped, so did the temperature. There had been snow on the mountain only days before. We’d been told it could reach minus five. I was still in a t-shirt and shorts, but up to that point I’d been revelling in what felt, to me, like ideal conditions: wind, rain, mud – perfect for an Englishman.

But now it was getting genuinely cold and the backseat driver in my head was starting to sound sensible. Put your gloves on. Get your headtorch out. Don’t be an idiot.

I listened.

All Downhill from Here

Eventually I reached Garañón, the final high point of the race. I arrived comfortably before the cut-off and allowed myself to feel a huge wave of relief.

This was it, I thought. Hard part done. I’d covered 50 kilometres. I’d taken on the worst of the climbing. From here, it was downhill. And I’m a very confident downhill runner. I’d set off 11 hours ago, but Plan A was back in sight.

I dried off a little, squared away my kit, and sat down with a bowl of sausage stew and bread. I took my time. I was back on track. I sent a photo of my food to my brothers, who I’d been updating on my culinary adventure throughout the day. The next checkpoint was only 7km away, downhill, and I had over two hours to make it. I was relaxed.

I stepped back outside and bolted with renewed enthusiasm towards for the course. At that moment, two officials jumped in my path.

‘Where are you going?’ they asked.

‘To the course?’

‘You’ve missed the cut-off.’

‘No, I made it with loads of time, I’ve been here a while?’

What I had misunderstood, was that there wasn’t just a cut-off to arrive at the aid station; there was also a latest time to leave it.

The ‘final runner-through time’, which I’d seen on the race charts and not properly understood, had just passed. By two minutes.

TWO. MINUTES.

A group of runners beside me began arguing with the officials. I didn’t. I asked what would happen if I continued anyway. The official looked suspicious and snapped a picture of my bib number – he told me I’d be refused entry to the next aid station. No water, no food, no support, in the dark, on the side of a mountain.

A younger version of me might have tried to blag it, or gone anyway. But I understood. These weren’t arbitrary rules. They were safety rules. And the information had been there all along. I just hadn’t respected it properly.

That was on me.

Respect the Process

There’s a maxim I try to live by from the 17th century swordsman Miyamoto Musashi: ‘Think lightly of yourself, but deeply of the world’.

Usually, that serves me well. I don’t take myself very seriously. Win or lose, I’m generally fine either way. But in this case, I hadn’t just taken myself lightly. I’d taken the race lightly. I’d taken the process lightly. I’d taken the rules lightly. And now I was paying the price for hubris.

Defeated. Not by the distance. Not by the climbing. Not by the weather. By lax admin.

Two bloody minutes.

Of course, the ‘what ifs’ started immediately. If I hadn’t grabbed that second piece of bread. If I hadn’t texted my brothers. If I hadn’t messed around so long sorting my kit. I’d have been on my way to the next station, cruising downhill, well within the limit.

But that’s life.

The bus ride down the mountain was quiet. It took me to the finish line – an ironic destination, all things considered – where some of The North Face team met me.

‘Are you OK?’ they asked. ‘Yeah’, I laughed. ‘Fresh’.

And that was the annoying part. I was tired, of course. But I wasn’t broken.

I’m a firm believer that if you’re going to be dumb, you’ve got to be tough. But at a certain point, you can be too dumb.

So – Can You Do It?

Do I believe you can run a mountain ultra marathon on one run per week, supported by intelligent strength training? Yes. I absolutely do.

Technically speaking, I didn’t finish the race. But I did run ultra-distance, up and across the mountains, eating up the hardest climbing, and arriving at the highest point still moving well enough that I felt confident about the descent. The physical test, to my mind, had largely been passed.

Wha I didn’t do was respect the rules. And in an event like this, that matters as much as fitness. So no, I didn’t finish. But I also didn’t leave thinking the experiment had failed.

What I learned is that one run per week can get you surprisingly far – perhaps far enough – if the rest of your training supports the demands of the event. Strength matters. Durability matters. The ability to move well under fatigue matters. The ability to not bargain with the voice in your head matters, too.

Would I go back next year? One hundred per cent.

Not because I feel I have unfinished business – but because it was such an incredible experience. The sunset above the clouds. The endless climbing. The conversations on the mountain. The paella. The spaghetti. The figs. The mud.

I’d do it again in a heartbeat. I’d just pay more attention to the small print this time.

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