Five cities, 11 days, 960km: How Jonny Davies ran the capitals
‘If you say you’re going to do something… do it.’
These are words recently posted to Instagram by Jonny Davies – an extreme ultramarathon runner and committed campaigner who has just completed his quest to run to every capital city in the UK and Ireland, continuously. That amounts to more than 960km of running.
But even more impressive? Davies completed the entire distance – and ran to all five capitals – within the space of just 11 days, 12 hours and 25 minutes. He sacrificed sleep and comfort for the greater cause that was his massive ‘Run The Capitals’ endeavour, which Davies undertook in aid of mental health charity Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM).
Davies, 32, hopes to raise £100,000 for CALM through his Run The Capitals JustGiving fundraising page, with Lululemon generously matching donations up to £50,000 to help him score his charitable goals.
Having set off from his first city, the Scottish capital of Edinburgh, on Thursday 12 September, Davies then made the 186km foot journey to the ferry that would sail him to Belfast in Northern Ireland. From there, he then ran 174km down to Dublin, the capital of Ireland.
The next stop was Cardiff. First taking a ferry from Dublin to Holyhead, Davies then endured another 326km on the road – amounting to five days of running – to reach the Welsh capital to rich applause from local runners and supporters.
Hilly Wales was by far Davies’ toughest running venue, featuring the brutal Brecon Beacons and around half of the 8,500m of elevation that he’d have to cover over the course of the entire challenge. He completed, to his relief, the full length of Wales on the ninth day of Run The Capitals (Friday 20 September), with ‘just’ the last section into England left to go.
‘Every day is getting harder and harder and harder, and my legs are just starting to feel so bad now,’ said Davies during the challenge. ‘I’m moving so slow, but sometimes, things don’t go our way – we’ve just got to do what we can do.’
And do this he could. Elated, emotional, exhausted and on legs that had just covered a painstaking 960km, Davies made his final steps back home to London – his final city and the stage of his finish line – on Monday night (23 September), where he was welcomed like a hero.
‘Sometimes in life we have bad days – we have tough days,’ noted Davies, reflecting on the wider meaning of Run The Capitals. ‘All we can do is face them, keep going and look forward to the good days.
‘The only thing in your power is to keep showing up day after day and to do so with a smile on your face. And trust me – it gets better’.
Dedicated to removing the stigma around mental health and to making others feel proud and empowered, Davies is not afraid of a charitable challenge of colossal proportions. Last September, again during Suicide Prevention Month, the British endurance athlete ran the entire length of the London Underground in support of CALM. Known as ‘Run The Line’, this mission saw him run the whole length of all 11 London Underground lines over 11 consecutive days – and tick off 572km and 272 stations along the way.
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