Ultra Trail Snowdonia by UTMB®

Beautiful beyond belief. Savage beyond reason.

New to the UTMB World Series this year is one of the wildest and toughest events in the calendar for 2022, the Ultra Trail Snowdonia by UTMB, set in the spectacular 
and challenging mountainous wilderness of north Wales 
from the 1-3 July.
 

This year is the fourth staging of an event that started in 2018 and is the 
brainchild of its Race Director Michael Jones. Around 1,130 athletes from 43 
nations will take on one of three distances – the UTS 50km, UTS 100km and the 
exceptionally tough 100-miler, the UTS 165km. Not for nothing is this event’s 
tagline: “Beautiful beyond belief; Savage beyond reason.” 

The longest race is certainly not for the faint-hearted and includes one of the 
biggest totals for overall ascent in any one race in the family of UTMB World 
Series events. It totals 10,200 metres and features no less than 12 significant 
climbs, including an ascent of Snowdon straight after the start from the colourful 
town of Llanberis. 

“It is more difficult than UTMB Mont-Blanc I would say, based on the feedback from 
people who have done both,” said Jones a former elite trail runner. “The secret to 
doing well is taking your time with it. It’s a 50-hour event, so you’ve got to be 
prepared to be on your feet and moving for two days and taking advantage of rest 
when you can get it. The best approach is to take it one segment at a time and try 
not to get too scared by the overall challenge and just break it down.” 

The course is quite technical with heavily-bouldered trails in parts, but it also 
includes ridge and moorland running, fire roads through forests and a chance to 
enjoy some of the most untamed countryside in the UK, complete with wild 
ponies, at what is the only UTMB World Series event in the British Isles this year.

Among the favourites in the male division for the UTS 165 will the British runner 
Mark Darbyshire who won the 100km race at this event last year. Rivalling him 
for the title will be the Welsh runner Simon Roberts, 33, who won the Dragon’s 
Back six-day stage race in Wales last year.  

“There’s a lot of climbing but the mountains are not as big as in Europe, so they 
don’t go on as long, but there are lots of smaller climbs too, so you are constantly 
going up and down,” said Roberts who will be going for the win on terrain he 
knows well. “That’s the mindset you’ve got to get into your head straight away and 
understand that that’s what your days are going to be,” he added.

In the women’s division, among six female athletes taking on the race will be Amy 
Norfolk, a 37-year-old dentist who lives in Cumbria in northern England. Norfolk 
was timed out last year at the final checkpoint and is determined to make it to 
the finish line this time round, come what may.

“I am just going to break it down into little bits – into 10-mile segments and just get

over each one,” she said. “And just remind myself I really don’t want to go back 
again next year, so I need to get it done this year and crack on.” Norfolk joked that 
she is praying for a couple of miserable wet days – “bleak and cold and horrible 
please” – conditions that she believes will help her stay the course.