When the Wind Wins: Lessons in Resilience From the UTCT Weekend

Some race weekends gift us finish lines, medals, and photos where we’re glowing with pride.
Others gift us something quieter but far more powerful — perspective, community, resilience, and the reminder that nature always has the final say.

UTCT weekend was one of those weekends. One that didn’t go the way most of us planned, but one that somehow still left me full of gratitude, admiration, and an unbreakable resolve to return stronger.

I was supposed to run the UTCT 35km. I lined up brimming with nerves, excitement, and that jittery anticipation that only race morning can produce. And then, barely seven kilometres in, the impossible happened: the race was stopped and cancelled due to gale-force winds that reached over 90km/h on exposed ridgelines.

I didn’t hold back tears.

Anyone who trains for something knows exactly why.

Hours on the trail, weeks of preparation, sacrifices, early wake-ups, foam-rolling, recovery… it all lives inside you on race day. And when that day collapses, even for the right reasons, it breaks something open inside you.

But UTCT wasn’t only about my race.
Before facing my own disappointment, I spent the previous day at one of the most powerful places in trail running: the aid station.

And that experience — watching runners fight through some of the toughest conditions imaginable — is what ultimately reshaped the entire weekend for me.

The Soul of Ultra Running Lives at the Aid Station

Crewing at the Llandudno Aid Station was wild in the best sense of the word. Especially Friday night as the 100 miler (160 km) runners came through from about 9 pm.

If you’ve hiked Llandudno Ravine you know its technical. Now imagine running down there. In the dark. With gale force winds.

The wind wasn’t “a bit breezy.” It was whipping. Violent. The kind that cuts through jackets and sends cups flying. Volunteers had to anchor things down with their own bodies at times.

But even in that chaos, there was a kind of electric joy.

Aid stations are the heartbeat of any ultra. They’re where you see the sport stripped down to its most human form. No finish-line glamour. No curated Instagram moments. Just people in their rawest state, doing their best to survive the next stretch of trail.

Being behind the table gives you a view that runners never see. You become part of stories mid-chapter — sometimes at their darkest, sometimes at their most triumphant.

What We Saw

Elite athletes, laser-focused and impossibly composed

Even in brutal weather, they moved with quiet precision — refill bottles, grab a gel, take a few deep breaths, and off they went. They were poetry in motion, even when you could see the fatigue etched into their faces.

Mid-pack runners, fighting their own battles

Some arrived smiling, laughing with volunteers, fuelled by camaraderie. Others collapsed into chairs, hands shaking, voices trembling, battling cramps, nausea, or mental fatigue. But almost all of them had that spark — a refusal to give up despite everything.

Back-of-the-pack warriors, redefining courage

These runners are the unsung heroes. They arrived battered by wind, cold, fear, doubt — but their spirit was unbelievable. They leaned on the table, their faces devastated, yet every single one tried to reset themselves for the next push.

Watching them, you realise: finishing times don’t measure courage. Heart does.

Volunteers and crew working like guardians

Aid station volunteers do everything: fill bottles, open snacks for shaking hands, offer blankets, check mental clarity, provide encouragement, keep people warm, share jokes, give tough-love pep talks when needed.

You see humanity at its best — strangers helping strangers, purely out of compassion.

The Quiet, Underrated Bravery of Quitting

In running culture, we glorify “pushing through.” We celebrate the ones who fight to the end.

But this weekend reminded me of something important:
sometimes the bravest thing you can do is stop.

At the aid station, I watched runners arrive broken in ways you could see and in ways you couldn’t:

Hypothermic and shivering uncontrollably
Physically unable to keep food down
Unable to focus or speak clearly
Battling injury
Fighting panic
Running dangerously low on energy

Some desperately wanted to continue. You could see the conflict in their eyes. But stepping off the course wasn’t failure — it was wisdom.

It takes courage to say, “I love this sport, but right now it’s not safe to continue.”

It takes maturity to recognise when your health must matter more than your medal.

And ironically, it is ultra runners — the toughest of the tough — who often need to hear that quitting can be strength, not weakness.

The UTCT 35km: The Race That Wasn’t

The next morning, when I lined up for my own event, I was buzzing. Windy or not, I was ready.

But the wind wasn’t “windy.” It was violent. Mountain-top gusts clocked over 90km/h — enough to knock people over, enough to send rocks rolling, enough to make exposed cliffs lethal.

Seven kilometres in, the race was halted.

There’s a unique devastation that comes with a race you don’t even get to finish.
It’s not the same as a bad performance.
It’s not the same as injury.

It’s a grief for the potential that never had a chance to unfold.

I cried because:

I’d trained
I’d visualised this race for months
I’d poured energy, time, and discipline into it
My heart was set on that finish line

But I also cried because I understood.
After seeing the mountain swallow people whole in that wind Friday and the heat on Saturday, the decision made sense.

And understanding doesn’t erase sadness.
Both can exist together.

A Year of Winds, A Year of Lessons

Cape Town has had a strange year.

First, the Cape Town Marathon was cancelled in October due to dangerously high winds. Now UTCT35 faced the same fate.

Two of the biggest running events on my personal running calendar, both stopped by the same force. One devastating 24 000 athletes, the other 400.

Congratulations to everyone who lined up. We showed up. That matters.

Double congratulations to the legends who made it to the finish line, from the miler to the 16km!

There’s a metaphor in that somewhere.

Sometimes, life brings winds you can’t outrun.
Plans collapse.
Goals shift.
Dreams get postponed.
Nothing is guaranteed, even when we do everything right.

Sports — especially endurance sports — teach us this again and again.

It’s frustrating.
It’s humbling.
It’s also strangely freeing.

Because it reminds us that resilience isn’t built by the days where everything goes right.
It’s built by the days where everything falls apart.

What Running Teaches Us (Even When the Race Is Cancelled)

Running is more than a hobby. It’s a quiet teacher. It shapes you in ways you don’t notice until you’re tested.

Running teaches you:

1. How to handle disappointment with grace

You learn that sadness doesn’t mean weakness. It means you cared.

2. How to adapt when plans collapse

Training makes you disciplined, but running makes you flexible.

3. How to trust your body — and respect it

Both pushing and pausing require wisdom.

4. How to sit with uncomfortable emotions

Frustration. Fear. Fatigue. Letting go.

5. How to keep going even when the motivation is gone

Consistency is the hidden engine of resilience.

6. How to start over — again and again

Runners reinvent themselves constantly.

And perhaps most importantly:

7. How to find joy in the journey, not just the destination

This weekend didn’t give me a medal.
It didn’t give me a finish line.
But it gave me something else: perspective.

Why We Will Always Return to the Trails

Even after the tears, the disappointment, the craziness of the aid station, and the shock of a cancelled race… I’m already thinking about next year.

Runners are wired that way.
We grieve — and then we rise.

UTCT 2025 may have been the year the wind won.
But 2026?
That’s an unwritten chapter. And we’ll all be a little stronger, a little tougher, a little more grateful.

The mountains aren’t going anywhere.
The trail community isn’t going anywhere.
And neither am I.

Because running isn’t about the perfect race.
It’s about the journey, the community, the resilience, the joy, the pain, the lessons, and the fire inside us that refuses to go out.