Started with a bet. Kept going because of the soup.
Wildstride puts on weekend trail races in weather most events cancel for. We’re small on purpose. Here’s who we are and how we run things.
November 2019. Four of us, one bothy, a storm that shut the forecast apps up for once. Someone bet the table nobody could run the ridge and be back before the fire needed another log. Three of us made it. One of us — Cal — took a wrong bearing, came in ninety minutes late, soaked to the bones, and said it was the best run of his life.
That was the first Wildstride. No timing chips, no arch, no queue for a medal. Just a route worth doing, weather worth talking about, and something hot at the end.
Six years on, the format hasn’t moved: one weekend, one basecamp, a few distances off the same start. We cap every race at 300 so the trail stays a trail. We publish the exact GPX before you enter, because you should know what you’re agreeing to. And the fire is always lit before the first finisher is back.
What we’re not
We’re not a series. There are no points, no rankings, no leaderboard — nothing to defend next season. The race is between you and the hill, and the hill isn’t keeping score. If you want a time, your watch will give you one.
How we run things
five rules, no exceptionsno waiting-list creep
Real routes
Every course is a route you’d choose to run anyway — ridges, summits, river crossings. We don’t loop a field to make the distance tidy. True distances are published to the decimal, from the GPX, not the poster.
Weather runs
We plan for the worst forecast, not the best. Races go ahead in rain, wind and snow. We only pull a route when the mountain rescue advisor we work with says so — it’s happened twice, and both times we ran the low alternative instead.
Kit checks are real
The mandatory list gets checked at the start line, every race, no exceptions for fast people. It’s not bureaucracy. It’s the difference between a bad hour and a helicopter.
Small field, big pot
300 per race. Aid stations are cupless — bring your cup, we bring the soup. Entry covers camping at basecamp, the GPX pack, and the fire.
Leave it better
Marked routes are swept and de-flagged the same day. We pay a land access fee to every estate and farm we cross, and each event funds a repair day on its own trails the following spring.
The crew
the people at basecampMara Whitfield
Ex-mountain rescue, sets every course on foot twice before it’s published. If Mara says the ridge is off, the ridge is off. Nobody argues with Mara.
Cal Brody
The one who got lost in 2019. Runs basecamp, the fire and a soup operation that got through 318 gallons at Kinder last November. Still can’t read a bearing.
June Okafor
Keeps the caps honest, answers every email herself, and has personally talked forty-one people down from the 80K to the 42K. All forty-one thanked her.
Sound like your kind of weekend?
Twelve weekends a year. Pick one, read the kit list properly, and we’ll see you at the fire.
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