Rat Race – Sea to Summit – Scafell Pike – Ultra Marathon 2026
53km, 2,069m elevation including multiple summits, four Wainwrights, steep waterfall scrambles, rocky trails and slippery descents, this was one tough day out for one MAC – and most definitely the toughest challenge I’ve taken on to date making it my longest, furthest and highest all in one day.
Rat Race are renowned for their adventure runs, with their slogan of finish lines above finish times, their mountain trilogy is advertised as one of the most accessible ultras and the Scafell pike edition this year boasted an 89% finisher rate.
The Scafell Sea to Summit ultra took place on Saturday 5th September 2026 which set off from the Cumbrian coastal town of Seascale to tackle Englands tallest mountain Scafell Pike at a height of 978 meters.
The race set off from the beach in a couple of waves, wave 1 at 7am and wave 2 at 7:20 (my wave), we started with fairly cold and windy conditions along the sand for about a couple of km before taking to the road through the villages of Drigg and Holmerook and then the first moderate climbs to Santon Bridge, approximately 10km all on tarmac at this point to the first pit stop, which was fairly uneventful at this stage but a crucial section to get some good runnable mileage under the belt fairly early. We then took a shortish off road section approximately 5km through woodlands and farmland up to Wast Water and then back on tarmac for what might be the last bit of good and flattish running before the base of Scafell.
At 24km, I reached the 2nd pit stop before the climb to refuel water supplies and ready myself for the long climbing sections of the race (there wouldn’t be another pit stop for the next 20km) – I made a critical error at this point, determined to hit my target time of 8 hours, I was not taking in enough electrolytes during the previous miles, in a silly attempt to save my then current carrying water for the mountain, in hindsight, I should of consumed it by pit stop 2 and replenished my supply for the mountain but I said to myself at the time I didn’t want to be faffing with my pack.
Leaving the pitstop just south of Wasdale Head, I was faced with the real climb and to my disappointment and frustration, the path up was looking crowded, this fuelled my attempt to keep my head down and just attack the ascent, going passed anyone, anyway I could and within the next km up, I was passing on some larger boulders and hit by the most crippling of cramps that instantly floored me 🫣 I thought my race was over and realised I hadn’t taken enough hydration/electrolytes and was pushing too hard, the 5 minutes that I was down seemed an eternity as I frantically tried to massage my calf to let go, plus a trusty cramp shot, I managed to tentatively get back up and gingerly start limping forward, at this point I had to let go of my 8 hour target and take my pace back, the goal was now to just finish and get through.
With a revised approach, I managed to scale the first peak and very cautiously descend the other side and thankfully now away from the crowds, to try settle back in for a long drag. The decent down Broadcrag Tarn was much slower than I would of liked due to loose stone and sheer steepness, it was difficult to keep upright, especially with a tender calf and now very shouty quads, I was almost entirely reliant on the poles to stop me slipping all the way down 😬 now in true Rat Race style, the challenges did not end there, we had the next section that I could only describe as a waterfall called Foxes Rake where it was pure hands and feat scrambling for the next ascent up peak number 2. By this point I had also run out of my water and gel supplies (my earlier cramping encouraged me to try take in more fluids quickly).
After scaling Scafell and another difficult descent, I was now officially on the return, still feeling dehydrated and rationing my haribo for the next rolling 10km on the ridge above Wast Water, still not hardly runnable. Filled with marsh sections, slippy descents and steep climbs until finally hitting the road again at Stoney Beck and approx 4km of tarmac back to pit stop 1 which I then knew I only had 10km-ish left, a quick refuel of all my bottles and it was time to get these last bits done and finally I could somewhat run/jog/ hobble back to Seascale which included a final extended beach section which I avoided the soft sand to make my way to finish in roughly 10hrs 34minutes and to my calculations around 99th out of 247 (Rat Race doesn’t post finishing positions, but you can sort the timings and roughly work out who finished where).
First finisher – Thomas Atkinson in 5:48:07
First Lady – Corrina Starr in 8:20:13
Full timings: https://results.opentracking.co.uk/event/rrs2ssp26?mc_cid=62c2a81fbe&mc_eid=9039a86a9e
P.s I didn’t know the MAC flag was upside down and back to front 😂
