Nike Told Me To: 2026

Ring O' Fire 130: race website

September 4–6, following the Anglesey Coastal Path

131 miles, 12,000 feet of climbing, 57% finish rate

As my GPS tracker tells the story, I settled into 40th place or so when the 2026 Ring O' Fire started on Friday morning, and by the first checkpoint at mile 13 I was in 25th place. With each checkpoint, I climbed more places: by mile 67 I was in 13th, and by mile 95 I was in 11th place. I finished near midnight on Saturday in 9th place, after running for 38 hours, 43 minutes.

The story I experienced was very different. When I looked at the GPS splits afterwards, they seemed to represent somebody else's race!

Coastal path markings for the Anglesey Coastal Path and the Wales Coastal Path,
which coincide in many places. We followed signs like this for all 130 miles.

I had been dreaming of running Ring O' Fire for over a decade. In 2013, when I was doing my master's in Spain, I went to Wales for spring break and walked the Anglesey Coastal Path, a 131-mile trail network around the Isle of Anglesey, meeting countless sheep and cliffs—and a few ruined castles—along the way. That trip lodged into a privileged place in my memory, overflowing with meaning, the way things do when you're 23.

When I got into ultrarunning, I learned about the Ring O' Fire Ultra Marathon, a three-day stage race following the Anglesey Coastal Path. Every couple years I contemplated running it but never made it happen. In 2025, they converted the event into a straight-through ultra (though it still has two sleep stations for those who want to make it a bit of a stage race).

When I signed up to run Tahoe 200 in 2027, I realized 2026 was the perfect time to finally run Ring O' Fire. It would provide an introduction to the over-100-mile distance, including dealing with aid stations being 15–20 miles apart like they are at Tahoe and many 200-mile races.

My family made a trip of it, too. We met up in Dublin for a few days of Irish galavanting before ferrying over to Wales.

My goal was to finish in 30 hours. My training went well, and I had put in the volume all summer. The goal seemed reasonable; I'd finished a few trail ultras with similar vert in under 24 hours, and I figured I could tack on 30 miles in another 6.

Easier said than done, as you might guess.

There's more than just the vert to think about. I had forgotten in my planning that, though most of the coastal path runs over pleasant grass and dirt, and about 20% of it is on pavement, the path also includes 20 miles of beaches—some sandy, some rocky—as well as rocky headlands. Not so easy to run on the beach.

This was my first ultra that I didn't feel even a twinge of nerves going into. I wasn't daunted or worried in the least. I was just excited to see what I could do, and to trace the coastal path again.

As the race started, I said goodbye to my family and joined the herd.

Taking it easy, I kept my effort at 10–20%, and planned to do so till the halfway mark, when I would muscle down a bit more. I didn't worry about people passing me; I was running my own race.

When I came into the first aid station at mile 13 about forty-five minutes ahead of my pace schedule, I started to wonder: how fast could I finish this thing? I was well trained, after all. Could I finish in 28 hours, perhaps?

The field was crowded for the first several hours, but never so much you had to jostle for position. The path ran on sidewalks and through pastures, not single-track. I found it peaceful and relaxing. Sixty-five degrees and partly cloudy, a faint wind. Outside of towns, much of the course ran along cliffs, drawing the mind to contemplate the waves crashing on the rocks below.

I reached the next aid station again about forty-five minutes ahead of my pace chart.

The next two sections were 20 miles each—a long way to go without an aid station—and I slowed, nibbling at my margin. I also discovered there was more climbing on the course than I remembered.

In my memories of the coastal path, I don't recall any climbing at all. A day before the race, I looked once more at the website and saw it had 12,000 feet of climbing over the 130 miles—which I still dismissed, since it is lower than many 100's I've done. What I forgot is that those climbs are concentrated in very small sections of the coastal path: one cluster about a third of the way through, and then more, cruelly, in the very final stretch. (Jumping ahead a bit, there's good reason the final 9 miles of the race took me 4 hours.)

Despite the long stretch without aid and the climbing, I still came into mile 47 ahead of schedule. The Firelighter 50 runners ended their day there, while the Ring O' Fire runners carried on into the shrouding darkness.

According to my pace chart, I should have hit mile 67—the halfway point—at 12:20 a.m., but I came in at 1:30. Okay, no worries, I thought. Maybe I wouldn't finish in 30 hours, but I could still finish in, say, 33 hours. But from that point on, my splits slowed quite a bit. I felt fine mentally and physically—no pain, no dark patches—just my body wasn't moving as smoothly as it had been. I arrived almost 3 hours late for the next checkpoint, and it only got worse from there. By sunrise I could do the math: I wouldn't finish before sunset. What a thought with which to begin the day.

I did my best not to get in my head about what it might feel like as the day dragged on. I just enjoyed myself out there, savoring my time doing this crazy sport that I love. I listened to the new Medium Build album, which came out that day, a few times. I put on one of my college party playlists and listened to a couple podcasts as I kept putting one foot in front of the other.

By mile 80 or so, I was reduced to walking.

Ultrarunning podcasters whispered in my mind: "Can you really not run anymore, or do you just not want to?" Yes, okay, I am just being a baby. I pushed myself to run. I made a deal to run one song, walk the next song. But running was like pulling against a strong rubber band; in short order I was just walking again. But I kept pushing myself to run, even just a little stretch, as often as possible. That was taxing. But I wanted to, first of all, not have to run too much in the dark again, and second of all, give the race everything I had to offer. I wanted to show myself how much discomfort I could put up with and for how long. I kept trying. My running became slower and slower. Even on the slightest incline, my walking was faster.

At some point I decided to accept that maybe I just wasn't cut out to be a great ultrarunner. I just walked as fast as I could. Interestingly, though I didn't feel I had any run left in me, I felt I could walk forever, even with 90+ miles on my legs.

Around this time, we entered Newborough National Nature Reserve and Forest, which includes a sand dune system and tidal island. For me, this meant a several-mile stretch of sand as I passed over the dunes and then walk-ran forever along a wide white beach.

Bothering some sheep in the night

The race as I experienced it was one of slowly breaking down, of failing to reach the goal I'd thought I was prepared for, of wondering why I put in a part-time job's worth of training into a pursuit only to be marginally mediocre at it.

Then again, from still another perspective, my race went incredibly well.

I never hit one of the mental low points ultrarunning is famous for. I never thought about dropping out. I never had any pain. No nausea, no drowsiness.

Nutritionally, I also nailed it. I had a 40-minute timer I kept repeating, and I took a gel or had a bite of something else whenever it went off. I kept eating even when I was tired of my Chocolate Outrage GU gels.

I had no blisters. No ankle issues, either. I never even had to change socks or shoes.

Mentally, I performed this race well: I never got overwhelmed by the distance. I didn't freak out when I hit mile 105, which was farther than I'd ever run before.

And when I ran out of runnability, I kept going and reminded myself that I'd probably be able to run again later on, which always seems to happen in ultras (and indeed would end up happening to me).

Yes, I felt frustrated about missing my goal and having to run through a second night and, if I'm being honest, making my family change their plans (assuming they had plans). But I had a job to do and that was getting to mile 131 as swiftly and healthily as possible.

I texted my family to see if they could meet me at mile 105 because that would re-up my spirits a bit. They did, and it did. I carried on.

In this light, that 40-mile span where I didn't have much run in me seems paltry.

Downing an entire bottle of water before leaving the mile 47 aid station.
Photo by Lloyd Belcher.

Some ultras I don't talk to anybody, and some ultras I make a good friend who I keep in touch with afterwards. You never know what the day will bring.

At Ring O' Fire, I chatted here and there with other runners during the first day and night. My accent gave away that I was one of the very few non-Brits at the race, which often invited a conversation. But after the halfway point, I only saw other runners at aid stations, and there my focus was getting out as fast as possible.

As I left the final aid station with 9 miles to go, another runner came in. I bid my family farewell and embarked on the last segment of the race, sunset on its way. I felt great. About a mile before, my runnability returned, as I suspected it would. The section began with a few miles of winding roads, which I lapped up. If only the whole section were like that.

Before long that other runner caught up to me. Her name was Laura, and she struck up a conversation and stuck with me. Since she caught up to me, I thought she was running faster than me. She ought to have passed me. Later I learned she had hustled to catch up to me.

When I stopped at a picnic table to set up my lights for running in the dark, she also stopped at a table to rummage in her pack. That told me unequivocally that she wanted to run with me. Good idea—I knew it would be a buoy to have company as I ran into the second night.

And thank goodness for Laura, because she had the GPS file of the race course on her watch, unlike me. (Note to self.) The path markings were difficult to see in the dark. I spent a good chunk of time the previous night wandering lost in sheep pastures looking for the trail. I sometimes only found my way when the next runner came by and I watched where their headlamp went. The signage was especially scarce in this final section, which traced the foothills of Holyhead Mountain and ran along sheer cliff headlands. Wandering lost would have been much more difficult this second night, and not to mention dangerous.

Laura and I chatted as we shuffled and had a grand old time. I didn't even realize it took us four hours until long after. At the time, we were either moving smoothly or negotiating rocky steps (up and down and up and down) that took all our attention.

But we survived Holyhead Mountain. Not long after tearing the final page from the last honesty book we were after, we descended back into Breakwater County Park, which we'd departed at nine o'clock the previous morning. We did get a little lost navigating to the finish line, but we figured it out, and we ran side-by-side to meet the small crowd that was gathered cheering at the tents.