‘I WAS CONVINCED COWBOYS SAT ON
E
VER wondered what it is like to run 240 miles over four days on as little as three hours sleep?
For many people, the thought of running up Snowdon is too much, let alone running through an American red rock desert, experiencing highs of 30⁰C and lows of -8⁰C.
That thought crossed ultrarunner Scott Jenkins’ mind as he spent his third night running through the Utah desert in freezing conditions.
“I was thinking, I would never go up Snowdon during the middle of the night, so what am I doing here?”
The 39-year-old has just become the first Welshman to complete the MOAB 240 between October 11 and 15, an ultra-running foot race spanning a gruelling 240 miles.
Runners have 112 hours to complete the race, and Scott came in at number 35, finishing the race in just 93 hours and 58 minutes.
He was one of only 94 runners to finish out of 121 starters, the only British person to complete the race this year and the first Welshman to ever participate.
Scott, who was born in Penarth, described the race as a real adventure, adding: “It was really difficult, your body is constantly fighting against your natural instinct to sleep and stop.”
The terrain is difficult, the incline is tough, with a 3,000ft start, rising to more than 29,000ft of vertical climb.
Amid the spectacular scenery of the Moab desert, with tree-lined peaks, you could be forgiven for at times thinking you’re in a movie from the old Wild West.
In order to keep himself awake for as long as possible so he could complete the race in time, Scott fuelled himself up on caffeine.
“The natural instinct to go to sleep is fighting against all the caffeine and I just felt like I was in this parallel limbo state, that is the only way to describe it. It just didn’t feel real,” said the 39-year-old.
“At one point, I started to hallucinate. I was convinced there were cowboys sat along the race line watching us.
“I 100% believed I saw cowboys on that race,” joked Scott.
To keep him going in the race, which included having to clamber amid boulders and along cliff edges, Scott carried a large kit bag equipped with snacks and a change of clothes.
“The drastic temperature change was brutal,” he said.
“You are constantly having to change your clothes to keep your body at a stable temperature.”
The race, which was founded by American ultra-runner Candice Burt in 2016, is dotted with aid stations serving hot and cold food with medical teams ready to care for any injuries suffered by the runners.
“Aid stations in the UK are exactly what you would expect, they give you bags of crisps, cereal bars, fizzy pop, but there, I would get to an aid station and typical America, they would be offering hamburgers and burritos,” he recalled.
Over the course of the four days, Scott burnt 26,000 calories – that’s two and a half weeks’ worth of your average daily calorie allowance.
And Scott had his own personal team out there with him – his wife Abby Flemming, friend Rhydian Morgan, also from Penarth, and Jacob Cooper, from Nevada.
Their job was to make sure Scott made it to each aid station, popping his blisters and feeding him along the way.