We always reflect carefully on the feedback we receive after each event. This has become a valuable way to ensure a process of continuous review and improvement. One of the challenges we face is that the event naturally evolves with time, and the Dragon’s Back Race® in 2023 was the first edition with the fully formed Hatchling. As regular participants know, there had always been a reduced course option, but participants only really discovered this once they arrived at the event or by word of mouth.

Introducing the Hatchling has changed some elements of the event, and we firmly believe for the better overall. It has been wonderful to see the way this new addition has improved inclusivity and built a strong sense of community amongst ALL the participants. Admittedly, there were a few minor teething problems during the 2023 edition (mostly about transporting large numbers of Hatchlings each day), and we have openly discussed these in Shane Ohly’s post-event Race Director’s report, which you can read here.

However, some stories have emerged over the autumn months that we feel are important to review, in order to ensure that the race still retains the same ethos it has always had, and to make sure every participant is treated fairly. Whether you are looking to do the full course, the Hatchling course, or are a member of the Event Team, we encourage you to have a read of these important reviews!

*Sharing the journey with participants ©No Limits Photography*

Hatchlings Supporting Participants on the Full Course

Unfortunately, several accounts have emerged of participants taking part in the Hatchling adopting deliberate and pre-planned strategies to support runners still on the Full Course. Here are some examples:

Not Acceptable

A Hatchling participant doing a supermarket shop on behalf of a runner on the Full Course so that they do not need to spend time visiting the shop for themselves.
A Hatchling participant carrying additional hill food to resupply a runner on the Full Course later in the day, allowing the full course runner to run with a lighter bag.
A Hatchling participant stopping at a café or burger van, buying food for a runner on the Full Course, ready for when they arrive or to be provided to them on course.

While I am sure that these examples were not deliberate acts of cheating but rather well-meaning support for friends, this does give an unfair advantage to the participant being supported. We do not believe it is within the spirit or ethos of the Dragon’s Back Race® to organise personalised support of this nature.

We want to make it clear that the many examples of camaraderie and mutual support between participants that take place at the event, and indeed, make the event special, remain welcome and encouraged. Some examples might include:

Acceptable

Providing a big hug of encouragement
Running together and providing mutual emotional support
Setting up your tent mates’ sleeping pad and sleeping bag
Fetching dinner for your friend once at the overnight camp
Providing a spare bar/gel to fellow participants on the course

*Relaxing at camp after a day in the hills ©No Limits Photography*

Event Team Supporting Participants

We have also become aware of a few examples of deliberate and individual support offered to a participant by a member of the Event Team.

Again, I’m sure this was done naively, but it most definitely provided an unfair advantage to the participant in question. We would like to highlight what we consider acceptable and non-acceptable interactions between the Event Team and participants.

Not Acceptable

Meeting your friend/partner at the finish with a protein drink.
Getting your friend/partner dinner so that they have more time to complete other admin tasks.
Setting up your friend/partner sleeping bag /pad and/or organising their personal kit for them.
Washing your friend/partner.

Acceptable

Meeting your friend/partner at the finish and providing a big welcome hug.
Timing your break to have dinner with your friend/partner.

We won’t tolerate systematic assistance to any individual participant from the Event Team, as this would jeopardise the integrity of the event and undermine the achievements of the participants who have completed the Full Course or the Hatchling without this additional assistance.

In future, the examples described above in points one and two would be treated as ‘gaining an unfair advantage’, and any participants involved will likely be disqualified and/or Event Team members instructed to leave the event.

To help clarify our position, we are updating the Event Rules with the following section about Internal Assistance. We regard Internal Assistance to include help from people within the event (other participants and the Event Team) and External Assistance to include help from people (friends, family, spectators) and organizations (hotels, B&Bs, etc.) outside of the event.

Internal Assistance Rules

This includes assistance from other participants or Event Team members that provides an unfair advantage.
Participants must not accept or give any favour, support, or help that provides any unfair advantage, whether on the course, at a support point or on the hill.
Participants may not access any services or support that is not available to all, i.e. you cannot take any premeditated support from other participants or the Event Team that is not also offered to every other participant.
Participants may only consume what they have queued for and bought for themselves from commercially available sources, such as supermarkets, shops and cafes. To avoid suspicion of unfair help, we suggest that if travelling in a pair or group, you arrive, shop and leave together, even if one person pays.

Event Director, Shane Ohly explains, “In all these examples, the benchmark test is to check whether every other participant has access or will get the same support or help. If the answer is no, please don’t do this.”

Shane continued, “In these examples please recognise the distinction between participants supporting each other (every participant has this opportunity) versus an Event Team member supporting one participant in particular. We are trying very hard to balance the amazing sense of camaraderie and fellowship that naturally develops at our events whilst eliminating unfair practices.”

READ THE EVENT RULES HERE

*Cooling down at the support point ©No Limits Photography*

Integration of the Hatchling

We would also like to share how we will better integrate the Hatchling participants into the event and minimise any sense of ‘them and us’ distinction between participants on the Full Course and the Hatchling.

That said, we do need to recognise that participants on the Full Course have a longer day and are under more time pressure.

It has been interesting to reflect on the feedback after the 2023 edition of the Dragon’s Back Race, which at times suggested we supported the Hatchlings to the detriment of the Full Course participants and, on other occasions, suggested that we did not support them enough, and remained focused on the Full Course participants. Clearly, there is a perception from some that one group gets a better deal than the other.

Within the office, we have discussed the pros and cons of restricting access to certain services (breakfast, medical tent, etc) for the Hatchlings at certain times to enable participants on the Full Course to have the best chance of leaving efficiently each morning. However, it is more complicated than a simple black-and-white approach, because a significant proportion of participants are trying to complete the entire course (and succeeding most days) despite being Hatchlings.

Therefore, we are going to provide guidance rather than rules:

Hatchlings on the Afternoon Course

(starting from the Support Point)

Please do not have breakfast until after 06:00 or attend the medical tent until after 07:00, so that participants trying to start early can have a clear run through the Overnight Camp in the morning. The hot drinks tent and main marquee will remain open to all during this time, and any medical emergency will be prioritised based on clinical need. The transport to the Support Point typically leaves between 08:30 and 09:00, so there is plenty of time to get ready with a 06:00 start.

Hatchlings on the Morning Course

(starting from the Overnight Camp)

You can access all the Overnight Camp facilities from 05:00, giving you every opportunity to start at 06:00 should you wish to do so. That said, there is no benefit to participants starting at 06:00 if you arrive early at the Support Point and wait at this location. The return transport will wait until everyone is ready to depart before leaving for the next Overnight Camp. It is far more comfortable to calibrate your departure from the Overnight Camp in the morning to the correct time rather than waiting for hours at the Support Point.

*Stopping for some extra fuel ©No Limits Photography*

Cut-Offs and Guidance Times

We need to make it clear that all the Cut-Off and Guidance times are still relevant to the Hatchlings and will be enforced.

Therefore, if you are on the Hatchling course and attempting to complete the first half of the course leaving from the Overnight Camp, it is possible that you’ll want to start at 06:00 as the Cut-Off and Guidance times are based on a 06:00 start. Hatchlings on the second half of the course, starting from the Support Point, are under much less time pressure, as they’ll be started well ahead of the Cut-Off time each day.

Completing the Hatchling

After questions about this last year, we want to clarify the criteria for completing the Hatchling course and eligibility for a Hatchling trophy. The criteria are that a participant must complete a course segment each day within the Cut-Off times, i.e., arriving at the Support Point before the Cut-Off time, or the Overnight Camp before the Course Closure Time.

A segment is defined by a course section between the Start or Overnight Camp and the Support Point or Water Point (whichever comes first), or the Support Point or Water Point and the Finish or Overnight Camp.

Please note that Transport to or from the Water Point is not an option on some days. Please review the Hatchling course options for full details.

Hatchling Leader board

Inevitably, there have been many requests for Hatchling results. We have decided not to publish results for the Hatchling as this is not in keeping with the ethos of the Hatchling.

However, we hope to provide a leader board of distance completed, and this will be arranged alphabetically where two or more participants have completed the same distance. The distance completed is based on our published segment distance rather than on GPS data. For example:

· Runner 1. Completes Conwy Caste to Ogwen Valley Support Point. They have completed 29km

· Runner 2. Completes Conwy Castle to Pen-y-Pas Water Point. They have completed 37km

The distances completed for each segment throughout the week will be totalled up so that the Hatchlings have a sense of who has completed what throughout their week in Wales.

*Food, coffee and a regroup before continuing ©No Limits Photography*

Overnight Camp – Quiet time

Delving into the feedback revealed two points that we’d like to expand on.

First was the request for ‘near silence’ in the Blue Tents overnight. There was clearly a lot of noise from participants on one of the evenings, disturbing a disproportionate number of fellow participants.

In typically British style, the complaints have taken some time to filter back to us! From now on, we’d like to emphasise to all the participants the importance of ‘quiet time’ between 22:00 and 05:00. However, if you feel there is an unreasonable disturbance overnight, please come and find one of the Event Team for help. This leads to the second point.

Overnight Camp – Summoning Help

We know that participants sometimes need help overnight, and this help is usually split into two categories: Medical and Practical. Medical help is typically an overnight illness and practical help is typically for tent problems, such as a deflating leak. We want to make it easier to summon the appropriate help once the event team has gone to bed. Please expect an update on this before the event. It is worth noting that there is usually someone on duty until midnight, and starting again from about 03:00.

Medical Help on the Course

We want to clarify what we do and don’t offer regarding support once the participants are on the course.

The ethos of the event is very much about self-sufficiency, yet we have seen a growing number of requests for medical attention at the Support Point and Water Point for minor ailments. We typically deploy a medic to the Support Point, and the Response Team might be temporarily based at this location.

However, their role is to provide emergency medical assistance. For the medic at the Support Point, we want them to have ‘eyes on’ all the participants as they pass through, and the Response Team can be called away at a moment’s notice. The headline for participants should be not to expect medical help on the course to treat minor ailments such as blisters, grazes, chafing, etc. While we will always provide medical attention for emergencies, medical attention for minor ailments will by and large be limited to the Overnight Camps.

Dawdling on the Course

There were a couple of incidents of participants (attempting both the Full Course and Hatchling) who stopped for unusually long periods of time at Cafes and Pubs, only to carry on despite being massively behind the Guidance Time.

This has a disproportionate and unfair knock-on effect on the Event Team and other participants who are likely waiting for them to arrive at a Support Point. If you wish to retire, by all means, stop at a place of safety and comfort if that is necessary, and Race Control will advise you about the most appropriate transport option. Managing a retired and stationary participant stopped at a café or pub is much simpler for the event logistics.

However, if you wish to complete the course, you must keep moving and make every effort to stay within the Guidance Times. In the future, participants behind the Guidance Times and choosing to stop without reason will be disqualified. For clarity, if you are ahead of the Guidance Times and wish to stop, that is fine… just be mindful of the guidance times and the event team and other participants who may be waiting.

Mandatory Clothing and Equipment

This is a reminder about the updated Mandatory Clothing and Equipment rules for 2024 onwards. The full update is HERE, but we’d like to highlight the zero-tolerance approach we’ll adopt to the Spare Synthetic Warm Top rule and the requirement to have the Exceptional Weather Kit with you at the event.

Learn more about kit requirements

*Debrief back at camp over dinner ©No Limits Photography*

Official and Unofficial Recce Events

Finally, we would like to remind everyone that there is a big difference between our Official Dragon’s Back Race® Recce Events, provided by RAW Adventures and recces of the course organised by ad hoc individuals/groups.

In 2021, there was an unfortunate incident of a participant getting injured whilst on an unofficially and poorly organised recce, with quite a large group. The participant had to withdraw from the race as a result of their injury.

Whilst it is fantastic that there is an independent community of runners coming together, building friendships and sharing trail miles, we would like to offer some advice and caution.

We only use experienced professionals to organise and lead our Official Recce Events for many reasons. The minimum qualification you are looking for in a ‘leader of a group on the hill’ is someone with a Mountain Leader qualification. They should hold appropriate insurance to cover the activity they are promoting/offering and they may also hold further UK Athletics qualifications, with additional Fell/Trail running experience and insurance. We would strongly advise you to be very cautious of joining an unknown group of runners if the organiser/leader does not meet these basic and minimum industry standards.

If you are considering organising an informal recce day, please remember that you are also taking on legal liability and have a clear duty of care to the people joining you, even if you are not charging anyone any money. We do not want to stop people from organising days in the hills with your friends – in fact, this is completely in keeping with the ethos of the event! Please do not ‘advertise’ recce days to the broader community.

For many years, the team at RAW Adventures has delivered excellent Recce Events, blending their knowledge of mountain craft and know-how with expert knowledge of the course.

RAW Adventures is the first and only organisation to get an early warning of changes to the course from Ourea Events, so we can be confident that if you join one of their Recce Events you’ll be on the correct route. The Run Guides that RAW Adventures employs are all ‘mountain professionals’, i.e. they hold National Governing Body recognised qualifications to lead groups in the mountains (mostly holding much higher qualifications than the minimum Mountain Leader). RAW Adventures, and all staff, are covered by appropriate activity insurance, and they all have first-hand experience of the event, often in multiple roles as participants and Event Team members. In short, we trust them to ensure you have a brilliant and safe experience in the hills.

Dragon’s Back Race® 2024 Ethos and Vision