Elsey Davis, Record Breaker.

Elsey Davies, recently won the 53 mile Highland Fling race in a new record time of 7 hours 37 Minutes 47 Seconds. We caught up with her and chatted about her race, training, preparing for Western States and the global trail running scene in general.

AS. Your running career is well-documented if people look up your stats. How did it all begin for you? Were you sporty at school or university? Or was running just something that happened by chance?

How it all started.

 ED. I did run cross-country at school. I’d say I was kind of middle to back of the pack. We had a good team and were the best girls’ school team in the country, at that time. We won the English Schools Championship twice. I was the fourth or fifth counter in the team. I think it was good for me as I got quite a lot of discipline from training as a junior but without the pressure. I think a lot of that builds up when you’re at secondary school. You’re racing like every other weekend at various cross-country meets, but nothing serious. Then I restarted, probably in my early 20’s as a hobby.

AS. It looks like you did a lot of fun events. You did your first sub-three-hour marathon in 2014, and the following year, you got down to 2:42.

 So, you’re starting to go long. You have done a lot of shorter races as well. Then, in 2018, you seemed to do a lot on the track and several road 10Ks. In 2019, you suddenly ran 2:33 for the marathon. How do you get from three hours to running two hours thirty three?

From 2:59 to 2:33 Marathon

 ED. I guess the sub-three was just off my own steam without a coach. I then started doing some faster club running sessions on a Wednesday.  I think that helped because I went from running 3.47, which was my first, then 3.30 something. Then 3.16, and then 2.58. I think the biggest difference was that I started doing more fast running. 

 I was still only running three times a week for that sub-three. Then, progressing from the sub-three was the year I got a coach, hence the big drop in time. Unfortunately, it was just probably too much too soon. I went from being an amateur recreational runner to training twice a day. I really enjoyed it, but it was probably just a bit too much. 

 Then there was quite a big gap from that 2:42 marathon to the 2:33 because I  kept getting injured.  I was always training for “that next marathon”, but never getting to the start line because I was recurrently injured. 

There would have been more incremental improvements if I’d managed to get to the start line or finish those marathons. It took a while to get back into any consistent training. I switched coaches in, I think, 2016 when I started being coached by Helen Clitheroe. She guided me to the 2:33 marathon.

AS. She did something right. Did she convince you to train, maybe slightly differently? 

ED. Yeah. I was just training a bit smarter and looking at the bigger picture in terms of workload and life balance.

The road to Trail

 AS. Somewhere around COVID time, you seem to get into trail marathons. What inspired you to make the transition from road to trail?

ED. I think, despite the progress, I was still getting injured. Most of my training was on the road. I got another stress fracture in lockdown. Essentially, I just found that anytime I tried to do any intense running on the roads, I just wasn’t able to do it without it ending in niggles or stress fractures. I thought I would try a trail event. I did my first, what you would call trail race in 2001. It was the Eiger 35km trail in Switzerland. I just loved it and thought it was amazing. The place was incredible, and I  fell in love with it from there. Then, I  did the GB  trials race for the World Championships in Thailand. 

 A couple of weeks after that, I got on the team for the Worlds. 

I think I first went into it thinking I could do both road and trails because I still liked running fast, and I’m still motivated by PBs, but the more I ran trails and mountains, the less I wanted to run on the road and the less I got injured. I haven’t really been injured since running a lot on the trails, so something about the different terrain is working with my body. I probably run more intuitively too, rather than trying to hit times or splits. 

 I still want to run a sub-230 marathon. It’s still on my to-do list, but I need to pick the right time and event. 

The Cornwall Connection

  AS. Just tangentially, slightly, you have a strong family connection with Cornwall. Briefly, where is home just now, and what are your training routes like?

 ED. Yes. I live in North Cornwall. My family is living in other parts of Cornwall too. We moved back here about a year ago. I live quite remotely, and I do most of my training on my own. I use the coast path quite a lot, which is nice and undulating, and travel to the Brecon Beacons quite a bit. I still go to the Lakes, and then obviously I am away racing and training sometimes. I feel like as long as you’re willing to improvise and travel,  I think you can get a training effect and still be competitive.

AS. Briefly, on family, you have quite a family running background. You have three sisters, I believe, two of whom are also, shall I say, good marathon runners. One is a competent marathon and ultra runner as well. Is there any family rivalry when it comes to marathon times?

Note. Two of Elsey’s sisters, Julia and Megan, have run 2:39 for the marathon. Julia is also an accomplished ultra runner, making the trail squad with Elsey at the Innsbruck World Championships, in 2023 and placing 3rd at the recent Sri Chinmoy 100k British Championships at Perth in March.  

 ED. I think Dad was very keen to get us all on the team for the London Marathon. It’s quite hard now getting us on the start line all at once, with a few of them having babies. We’re also not all running on the road anymore. We don’t really race each other very much. I train with my little sister a bit. She does triathlon and stuff, so we do some training if I’ve got any class sessions. She definitely pushes me because I don’t want her to beat me in reps. It’s like a friendly rivalry.

The Highland Fling Race

AS. Coming on to the Highland  Fling. How did you approach the Highland Fling? Living where you do, you didn’t have a chance to recce the course.  What were your goals going into the race? And where does it fit into your overall year, as it were?

ED. So I originally was going to do UTS, (Ultra Tour de Snowdonia). Looking at the UTS course profile and how technical it is, it didn’t feel like the right race in the build-up to the Western States. This year, I’m trying to make my training as specific as possible. I’ve got a new coach. I was self-coached the first two years on trails, and I wanted a bit more direction, so I have recently started working with Martin Cox. I’d say the training is a bit more specific, and everything leading up to Western States is to help me towards Western States rather than be just another race I fancy running. Previously, I would randomly pick races I wanted to do, not really based on it being like a springboard to the next event. It meant I did okay in several races but never amazingly well because my training wasn’t specific for that, or I wasn’t quite prepared. I would run a technical sky race, then another random training block, and then another race.  It’s fun, but as I said, you end up doing a lot of mediocre races, okay, rather than performing well in a couple of good ones.

 The Highland Fling seemed a better build-up to the Western States. Beth Pascall used it in the lead-up to one of her Western States races. Beth was also coached by Martin and it worked well for her. It’s more runnable, and the elevations are not crazy. It seemed like it was a good build-up to the Western States. I also wanted to use the Fling to practice. It’s only my second, what I would call, “a real ultra race”.

 Nice 110km was probably my first real ultra. I mean, I’ve done lots of 50Ks, but yes, 50K would be the usual max until last year. It’s only my second race over 50K. I’m still a relative novice in figuring out how to fuel,  and how to pace things. Running the Fling gives me some more experience practising with a longer distance because I have no idea what pace to go out at. 

When I went out at the start of the Fling, it felt comfortable. I knew I was sometimes in third place or running with the group of guys behind Rowan. I wasn’t sure if I should be around them or not. Even though it felt comfortable, I was like, should I hold back? 

I am still getting used to how it should feel at the start of a longer race and in the middle.

AS. And how did you find the Fling course itself? There’s nothing incredibly technical, like some of the shorter races you’ve done. However, some short technical sections break up the rhythm a little.

ED. I mean, I love the course. I’d say it’s one of my favourite races that  I’ve run. I found it a little mix of everything. It was quite runnable, and I like being able to get into a rhythm and run. There was a 10k section in the middle on the lochside that I didn’t enjoy a huge amount because, as I said, it breaks your rhythm up.  I wasn’t sure how long it would go on for. I had all the splits on my hand of Beth’s records, but as I hadn’t seen the course, I wasn’t sure. 

I didn’t have the confidence to know if I would definitely get to the next station before that split because I also know Beth’s strong on hills and more technical stuff.  I thought the first half was going to be better for me, and I didn’t know how much the second half would take out of me. I was still pushing hard through each section, and trying to push hard through that 10k stretch was an effort. I think the more you fight it, the worse it is.  I just tried to relax a bit more and just not get so pissed off when I reached the next tree roots or boulders. It wasn’t terrible. It was just like roots and boulders in the middle of a 50-mile race, and there is still quite a long way to go.

AS.   Let me reassure you that you’re not the first person to curse at that 10k stretch on the lochside. 

ED. In the last section after the Loch, although more undulating and hilly, I felt I was running up most of those hills.

After 10 miles, I started to think, “Well maybe I have gone off a bit fast”. I had a minor bad patch where I was feeling, “Oh no, the adrenaline’s gone up”. So just after the first aid station,  I just made a conscious decision to sit back and let the other guys go off.

  I think about seven or eight, a big group of them just sailed up Conic Hill. They quickly went ahead by a couple of minutes, but that pace just felt a bit too much for me. It was quite a good decision because most of them started coming back to me later in the race, and that is always quite enjoyable.

.

 ED……And that run down Conic Hill as well, the new crazy, crazy paving,  made my eyes spin, and  I was desperate for that to be done. 

It felt it was too risky relatively early in the race to really let go down the hill. If you fell on that, it’s quite solid, like, you could easily break your back, couldn’t you?

 AS. So you get to the finish, and you’ve been running in the boonies. You’ve been running pretty much all on your own in the boonies for a few hours. Then, all of a sudden, you get to this little village with a piper and a red carpet. Just sum up your feelings at the Fling finish when you got on the red carpet.

ED. It’s really cool. It’s quite unique actually. Yeah, I liked it a lot. It’s funny having to dib in at the start of the red carpet before running down it because you just want to get straight on it, Yeah, it was good, and I was just quite tired by then, but I managed to get one more place, and felt sorry for the guy as I literally took him in the last mile. I could see him looking behind. I  caught him just before the carpet.

Elsey Davis.Record Breaker.

 AS. So you took 10 minutes off Beth Pascall’s record, which was a good record. Do you feel you were at the max? Could there be more to come from either you or another runner on another day?

ED. I think you know the thing with records and trail running is that it’s very dependent on the conditions. Although it’s nice to get the record, it is very condition-dependent. It’s hard to say.” Oh, I beat Beth’s time on that day, which doesn’t mean that I’m now going to finish fourth in the Western States. I think the year she ran the Fling and went on to place 4th in the Western States, the weather wasn’t good. It never translates like that because I think when she last ran the Fling, she had apocalyptic weather to cope with. Although it’s nice to chase records, I think you can’t read too much into them. You couldn’t have got any better conditions on the day. It would have been nice to be slightly warmer at the start, but that’s just being picky. It was a beautiful day. Completely still and a nice sunny day.

 I don’t see why the record can’t be broken. It would be nice to get a deeper women’s field. That would make for faster times for sure, having a hard and fast race. 

 AS.  Just moving on. Obviously, the Fling is a classic grassroots, not-for-profit event, that all the volunteers give up their whole weekends for and more. How do you find a race like the Fling compared with some of the races you have done abroad, like the UTMB series and others?

 ED. It’s super friendly.  Everyone at the aid stations was so helpful. The drop-bag thing was really quick, and at the finish, I was so impressed by how much people looked after you. That was really nice. It’s nice to have that commercial side stripped away sometimes.

  I enjoy that. I don’t race in the UK very much. I didn’t at all last year. 

 AS. You’ve alluded to the fact that you dabbled in longer distances. Your race history is well documented, and you did a run a Bob Graham a couple of years ago. You alluded to the Cote d’Azur race over 112k, which you won. What’s persuaded you to try and go long? Is it something you just looked at and asked yourself the classic question, what’s my best distance, what’s my best surface? Or were you just tempted to go long?

 ED. Yes, I think I was tempted to see how it feels to run long. I’m quite an economical runner and mentally quite strong. I think a lot of ultra running is less general fitness and more of mental strength. In the second half, you have to be fit, but I think mental strength plays a big part in it.   I think it was being able to test that mental strength a bit more. Certainly, the Bob Graham tested that. Now, any time I compare anything, I always think, if I can run a Bob Graham in the middle of winter, in those conditions, I can do anything. The Western States course in particular is quite suited to my running style, and I am just interested in running on American trails. I’ve heard that they’re pretty amazing.

Looking to Western States 100.

AS. How will you spend the next eight weeks between now and the Western States? Are you planning to go out early or carry on training up to the last minute here at home?

 ED. Yes. I’m going out a month before to acclimatise. I’ll stay at altitude and start some heat training as well. I want to go in fully prepared, so will be there a month early. I have to do some hard training here before and then head out there. I think you have to, as all the main contenders will be. You’re going to be at a huge disadvantage if you’re not altitude or heat-acclimatized, so I don’t want to start on the back foot.

 AS. Western States is always a competitive field, and there are always two or three names who come out from under the radar and are just more at home with that terrain.

Global trail running scene.

AS. Moving on to a couple of wider questions. In the trail running scene in general, you’ve been to several European and World championship events now with a GB vest on. Right now, there are all these various strands of the sport. Some would say the more commercial strands like the Golden Trail Series, UTMB series, Skyrunning, etc. How do you see trail running developing globally in the next few years?

ED. That’s a good question! I think it’s getting more and more competitive, that’s for sure. It’s exciting really, and it’s cool to see it grow. I think it’s probably just going to continue to grow. I’d like to see it becoming more mainstream. I mean, It would be great to see it in the Olympics. I think with the coverage you can now get, it’s more and more likely. I think that the problem before was that it was difficult to get coverage. Now these days, with drones and people on e-bikes, it’s much easier to get coverage from almost anywhere on any course, so that would be a cool direction for it to go.

 I’d like to see it grow more in Britain and see more international athletes come over here and appreciate that we have amazing hills. I don’t think people abroad even know or realise we have places like The Lakes which are magical and the Scottish Highlands also. I’ve not run in Scotland as much, but the small bits I’ve seen, just seem endless, with incredible and unique trails compared to other parts of Europe. A lot of Europe has very similar kinds of terrain, whereas I think the UK is unique, and it would be nice to see more international competition here, but I know that brings other controversies because with International Fields probably come more commercial races. I’ve just seen The Arc linked up with UTMB, which has caused a lot of discussion. To be honest, I think that’s a good thing because I know it will attract some international athletes, so it makes it more appealing for me to enter it because I like to have competition. The deeper the fields, the better, but I also see the other side, where it’s costing people loads of money and is less accessible to some. 

 Note. The Arc, are the Arc of Attrition races held in Cornwall, in January, which has just entered into a partnership with UTMB.

 AS. It’s a fascinating conversation that so many runners are having at the moment, and it is good to hear the views of one of our leading trail athletes. I think there is a middle way to be struck somewhere there, in having that balance between well-organised, grassroots events along with a few higher profile events that don’t get too commercial, shall we say?

  ED. I think a lot of the time, it’s just such unnecessary costs that races like UTMB, for example, put on races. It seems quite extreme, and it’s not clear where that money’s going. I assume it’s just going into someone’s pocket. It’s not going to the athletes because they don’t give prize money at all. I won three UTMB races last year, and I didn’t get a penny for any of them. It seems they just like to make money.

What fuels your Inner Runner?

AS. A couple of final questions. I usually ask people why they run.

You love running and getting fit, and you alluded to it when talking about moving up to longer distances that there is more to running ultras than just fitness. What fuels Elsey’s inner runner when things start getting hard? When you’re running a tough race, or a training block seems to be just on automatic? How do you get through that? How do you deal with that? 

ED. I  try and stay in the present. The easiest thing in ultra racing is to start thinking about how far you’ve got to go and counting down the miles, but it can be counterproductive. You just end up in a bit of a hole, as it feels like such a long way. So, when I’m running, I just try not to think about too much and stay in the present. I try to keep fueling and focus on things that do feel good rather than what feels bad. So if you feel sick, just focus on, “Oh, but my legs feel okay.” Focus on your breathing and then try and make a new plan of how you’re going to get around. Have a plan B, for almost most situations. Like, if I feel sick but know I need another gel,  just reduce the amount of the gel you’re having at once and have it more frequently. It’s coming up with solutions when you are on the move. I think the main thing is just staying in the present and managing to stay in the moment.

 Another thing is when you feel you are starting to slow down. If you start worrying and overthinking things, that is probably the worst thing you can do in an ultra race.

 AS. Just in an overview of running in general, do you have a deep-seated reason as to why you run?

 ED. I guess it’s like an addiction. A lot of my identity is wrapped up in it now, but I know that if I don’t run, I don’t feel like me!

You get back what you put into running. It’s kind of a good relationship with what I put in, I usually get back. I don’t see myself as naturally gifted or talented. I just work hard. I think that shows from school days when I wasn’t naturally the best, but I started working harder and harder with my running, and it’s just giving back what I’ve been putting in. 

Who Inspires you?

 AS. Great answer. Finally, do you have anyone, either in running or life in general, who always inspired you and you look up to? 

ED. Oh my god! That’s a hard one.

 AS. You always think of family, and often you take them for granted.

  ED. Maybe it is family. Probably my Dad from growing up, because he’s always run. He ran a sub-three-hour marathon when he was 60. He’s got better as he’s gone on through the age groups. He was never an elite runner or anything, but he became an age-group elite runner in a way. I guess growing up around Dad, he always ran and made me think it was just normal to run, and I think I am probably mostly inspired by him. I don’t hero-worship anyone in particular.

 AS. That’s very refreshing actually. Your Dad will be happy to hear that,

 ED. Cool.

 AS. Good luck with the next eight weeks. 

ED. Thank you.

 AS. It is great that you can juggle work with getting away for a month.

ED. Yes. The support I recieve from The North Face is really appreciated and helps a lot. I’ve managed to work things out and move some things around at work. It will mean that I will have a bit more work to do when I get back home, but I will have a bit of a rest from running for a week or two.

Full Results of the 2024 Fling Race are HERE

Read our preview of this years race HERE

Full details of the Fling race HERE

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Adrian Tarit Stott.

The author is a former GB 24 hour ultra international with over 100 ultra race completions.  He has also been involved organising ultra distance races for over 30 years.  Still an active recreational runner, he is currently a member of UKA’s Ultra Running Advisory Group (URAG) and part of the selection and team management for both Scottish and GB ultra teams.He is also a freelance writer in his spare time, contributing articles and reports to several websites and magazines including Athletics Weekly and Irunfar.