The EPONA 2025 was a lot more than ‘just’ last year’s route reversed!
I never know writing these things if anyone reads them. It’s never a self-indulgent thing about showing ‘how good I am’ or any shit like that. I’m just a weekend warrior that does things to see if I can or not. That said, this weekend’s EPONA 2025 edition gave all this writing a new lease of life and purpose. I got recognised! Like I disclaimed off the bat, it’s not a popularity thing, I write because I want to share my ‘average stature aging athlete’ experiences to maybe inspire or entertain. Everyone who I met this weekend and especially the ones who said, ‘I read your blog!’ gave me a pretty big buzz to be fair. So, I thought that I’d better write another to keep the home fires burning.

EPONA 2025 Pre-Race Briefing – Courtesy of Daz’s Photography
First things fucking first, I would like to thank everyone who I met and tagged along with at some point.
Those I already knew and those who I met for the first time. You have no idea how valuable those moments of respite were when we were all in the same pain cave grinding it out:
Matt (only at the start because you fucking smashed it mate, awesome work!)
Kev – just an awesome guy x
Gem – from a couple of miles into Sugar Loaf then the canal and big bastard hill night section. You and Paul we’re great and it was sad to see you retire at the checkpoint. Legends.
Dean, yoyoing from Sugar Loaf onwards until the sleep station
John – from Llanthony and Offa’s Dyke Path, grinding it out and when you went on, I met…
Luke – first effort at a 100-miler jumping from a 30 miler. Made Offa’s Dyke Path a breeze, thank you dude!
Dan – yo-yo’d several times as he helped his pals along the route.
Susie and Tomos – you guys were awesome, and I knew I’d not be able to keep up with you both – BUT – you did help make that fucking never-fucking-ending fire road a bit less painful – so thank you guys and well done too!
Having dozed off at a checkpoint, Chris woke me up and I though I was chasing down Gem and Paul (mentioned earlier) but I hadn’t realised the situation), so motoring along I caught up with two legends who I’d end up grinding out the rest of the EPONA 2025 with…
Richie and Mark. These guys. Awesome. We were in the trenches together it was so cool to spend all that time with you. Mark was an absolute machine. Richie, entertainment value was spot on.
Along our travels we picked up Jacqui who was like a sister from another mother – had the same views on pretty much everything except where we came from – did we evolve like Darwin said or did aliens intervene?! TBC lol.
As for the checkpoint guys and gals, I gotta thank Rachel, 2 x Chris’, Owain, Bernie, Cath, Anita, Caz, Spencer, Ryan who microwaved my food – godsend! Sarah, Jenks, Sean, Matt and anyone else who helped me out. If I missed you out, let me know, you need to be on my list!
I’ve followed as many of you as I could find on Insta as a thankyou!
Anyway, back the EPONA 2025.
In a nutshell, 1/10. Do not recommend LOL.
Nah, I joke. It was considerably harder than last years’ inaugural EPONA (the other way round) so anybody that finished it deserves kudos, however long it took! Can’t put my finger on it exactly but it was just harder – I had had already done the previous one and tweaked elements of my training to make it less painful – and it still was – despite being faster than last year with an additional 4+ hours of sleep / rest. Out of 124 runners, 88 finished – to give you an idea of how tough it was.
Day one was gloriously blistering.
By the way, I’m counting ‘day one’ as everything achieved up to the sleep station, and I’ll be honest, it was a fucking hard day! Take a look at the elevation chart, it was the hardest bit to tackle, big, sustained climbed, painful downhills, the fucking wind didn’t help along some ridge running along the Cambrian Way and fuck me, Table Mountain ascent and descent before heading into Crickhowell must have broken some people. That was an absolute twat! However, before all that, the Offa’s Dyke Path section for example wasn’t too bad. From Llanthony to path it was hot, sticky and humid. As the route ascended to the Offa’s Dyke Path, it clouded over and started to drizzle – but it was a bit cooler.
As I reached Hay Bluff and the checkpoint at Gospel Pass, things were really heating up as we approached the afternoon. It got warmer over Lord Hereford’s Knob too. Funny story about that – last year, my tracker became intermittent, and it looked like I was stuck on the Lord’s Knob. I believe, unknown to me, that there was some concern about my welfare, and looking back, if I had died on last year’s EPONA, then I would’ve loved a funeral full of inuendo about how Lord Hereford’s Knob ruined me etc etc. This year, no such drama.
The rest of day one, head down, grind it out, Get some rest.
Day two as I called it started, conveniently at around midnight on Saturday night. I’d used up my 4 hours at the sleep station and as luck would have it, Gem and Paul were heading out too, so it made the prospect of the canal towpath and the ascent and descent of Tor-Y-Foel much less shit with these two legends. After losing them (unknowingly) at Checkpoint 5, I woke up from my chair nap and bombed off up the Taff Trail to catch them, only to catch Mark and Richie on the Cambrian Way, who I’d tag along with for the remainder of the event as it goes.
The rest of it was long, arduous and both a mental and physical struggle. We just chatted shit and ground it out. Richie occasionally got a second wind and shot off (sometimes off route!) leaving me and Mark to just share comfortable silences as we battled through. At Checkpoint 6 in Gilwern, Jamie added to our motley crew.
It started to heat up toward and beyond Checkpoint 7. That was a sticky old slog. Recalling vividly that where we were then was only the start of it last year, so I was able to spin positive mental thoughts as we edged, slowly and closer, to the finish line – which was still an even longer way away yet in the heat with the pace dropping off a little.
Weather decided it had had enough and as we headed over the Blorenge, it was wet, windy and cold as we plodded on to the final checkpoint. This one was hard, because it’s where the finish line was. If the climb up Table Mountain didn’t break you before Crickhowell, then being a 14-mile loop away with an ascent and descent up the Skirrid then up and down Sugar Loaf, again, would undoubtedly be too much for some. It was hard, especially as we were welcomed at the checkpoint as if we had finished, then we sat and watched a steady flow of finishers trickle in, knowing we were hours away from that feeling yet.
As always with these things, it’s not about what’s in your legs, it’s about what’s in your head.
Anyway, we set out. Just got on with it. It was getting dark so there was fuck all to see apart from look at the ground lit by our head torches. It just went on and on. Going up the Skirrid the reverse of last year but fortunately not coming down it the way we went up it in ’24, that woulda been horrific! That said, at the top of the Skirrid, fuck me, do the wind pick up!
The ascent up the Sugar Loaf was a new one to all of us except Jamie! An unrelenting uphill slope for what seemed like fucking miles, then off into the fucking ferns. I’ve seen enough ferns to last me a lifetime now. Fact! Going up that fucker was bad. Coming down it was another thing. As bad as last year. Sore legs, loose surface, wet, windy, dark… Me and Mark took it easy, my legs were shot, it was a cramp management effort. Every time a downhill step impacted, the calve twinged and the quads tweaked. It was literally one step. Stop. Next step down. Stop. By now, my toe tips had taken a pounding and everything pretty much hurt a little or a lot, depending on what I was doing.
What seemed like the hardest part was done. 5k left to get to the finish line. We were cooked; it was gonna be the longest 3 fucking miles any of us would do! Dawn started to break. I said to myself last year that this year I wanted to finish in the light. Well, I did. However, it was meant to be the light of dusk on a Sunday evening, not a Monday morning sunrise!
Job fucking done.
Massive thanks to everyone that played a role in getting me through the EPONA 2025. I made this shit video of pans with some cheap tech. It did a job. Not great, but I did it, so I wasn’t letting it go to waste. Even added some soothing music to ease any PTSD triggers from those that were there!
Kevin
Awesome read mate.
And absolutely amazing effort as always..
See you soon mate
Kev x
Lived the video by the wsy
Herefordshire Trig Bagger
Hey Kev! Thanks so much mate, appreciate it! x