Race the Dragon's Back across Wales
Your socks are wet before breakfast, soaked through in the first bog on the Rhinogydd, and they stay that way for five days. The Dragon's Back Race covers roughly 315 kilometres along the spine of Wales, with about 15,500 metres of ascent — about 1.75 times the height of Everest from sea level. You learn to read the clouds on the ridgelines, because grey means compass, not the path you can't see. It finishes at Carreg Cennen Castle, and the last climb up to those walls, quads gone, legs shaking, is the only part of the week you'll actually remember clearly.
Practical
- Cost
- $1,800–2,500 entry, plus travel and kit
- Best time
- Held biennially in September
- Difficulty
- Hard
- Time it takes
- 5 days of racing, after months of hill training
- What people get wrong
- People assume fitness alone will get them through and neglect navigation practice in poor visibility, which is what actually causes drop-outs. Others overpack for the support stops and end up carrying weight they don't need on the climbs.
- With
- A group