James Bassett, from Peel, won the UK’s longest road race last weekend.

The Lon Las Ultra race takes place across 253 miles from Holyhead to Cardiff and runners must complete the route in under 88 hours.

The three-and-a-half day challenge saw Mr Bassett battle exhaustion, lack of food, high altitudes and hallucinations.

In spite of this, Mr Bassett finished the race in 76 hours, joint-first with another competitor.

The race has to be completed unsupported, competitors have to carry all of their belongings with them and sleep anywhere they can on the route.

’You just keep going until you finish or you drop,’ said Mr Bassett.

In an effort to raise funds for The Children’s Centre, which he has so far raised £2,173 for, Mr Bassett set out on his journey last Friday, October 15.

He planned his route and how long he should take on each section so he could complete it inside the 88-hour window and he got to his first checkpoint half an hour earlier than he expected.

The runner then faced two huge climbs up into thick mist.

’You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face,’ he added.

It only got worse when Mr Bassett began to have hallucinations after he passed the 150-mile checkpoint but after a nap, he felt ready to push on.

He said: ’It was at that point I heard I was comfortably in second place so I pushed even harder to see if I could put some pressure on the person in first place.’

Not long after that he became ’hopelessly lost’ and managed to meet another competitor in the dark who he stuck with ’for safety’.

’You get so tired that you can start making daft decisions so it was better that we stayed together, that way you can debate whether something really is a good idea,’ Mr Bassett continued.

Once they arrived in Merthyr, a town just north of Cardiff, they were told the competitor in first place had been pulled out by a medic.

Mr Bassett said: ’We were told he had made a daft mistake and hadn’t got any sleep.

’He’d become completely unaware of where he was, what he was doing, he wasn’t even aware he was in the race.’

’I felt fantastic and we set off again at a really good pace.’

But his watch, which was giving Mr Bassett directions, began ’playing up’ and the journey became a ’real struggle’ as the pair tried to navigate through a town.

The Peel man added: ’It was absolutely dreadful, some of the signs had been taken down or turned around and we just got so lost.

’We were so tired and it got to the point where I don’t actually remember very much.

’We were both hallucinating, neither of us could really concentrate on what we were doing, we kept stopping.

’I have all sorts of weird, strange memories which don’t make very much sense at all.’

Before they knew it they’d made it out of the town and into the outskirts of Cardiff.

’We had a few miles left which we trudged through, my ankle started going, I think my Achilles started getting sore. We’d been lost for five hours,’ he recalled.

After what felt like days of trudging towards the end, Mr Bassett and his fellow competitor finally crossed the finish line.

He said: ’I collapsed in tears, it was incredibly emotional.

’That last few miles took the longest, I can’t even remember most of it.

’My wife and my sister were waiting for me with a big Manx flag so I got to carry the Manx flag over the finishing line.

’Apparently my entire family along with about 150 other people in the Isle of Man were following me on the tracker throughout.’

Mr Bassett explained the biggest challenge for him during those 76 hours was a ’wobble’ he had just before reaching the 100-mile checkpoint.

He continued: ’I had a minor wobble coming up to the 100 miles, I don’t know what that was about, that might have been just because I had stopped eating so maybe that was my body switching over from burning carbs to burning fat.

’I struggled to sleep but I always struggle to sleep.

’I had about 20 minutes that I can remember, and then more at some point but it’s a blur.

’It might have been about 40 to 45 minutes altogether.’

When asked if he ever felt like giving up, the runner replied ’no’.

The personal trainer added: ’Just that last section and it wasn’t that I didn’t know I could do it, I just needed it to be over.

’It seemed like we weren’t making any progress for quite a lot of it and that was so frustrating.’

His favourite part was when he was coming up to the Brecon Beacons.

Mr Bassett added: ’I saw the prettiest little villages I’ve ever seen at night, they were all lit up, it was absolutely beautiful.

’We got some amazing views from the top of the mountains as well, the views were absolutely spectacular.’

All in all, 12 people finished within the 88 hours out of 28 who started the race, which included two competitors who made the cut-off by mere minutes.

’I got a huge medal, it’s a massive red Welsh dragon medal and a t-shirt,’ Mr Bassett said. ’I do races to win.

’I do races that I think I’ll have a good chance of and ones that will suit my background in walking. If I know there’s long uphills then I know I have an advantage over the runners.’

The training process for Mr Bassett was not an easy one.

The runner would put 10 kilos of books in the back of a rucksack and hike up and down Peel Hill six or seven times as fast as he could, as well as go for frequent long runs on rough terrain in preparation for the event.

’I still go out for runs five or six times a week even if I’m not training for something,’ he added.

Mr Bassett also imparted some words of wisdom for anyone looking to start running ultra-marathons as a step up from the average marathon.

’Slow down,’ he warned. ’People try to run too fast and you’ll injure yourself. Learn to run very slowly and pace yourself.’

But why choose to do an ultramarathon?

’I’ve done lots of long races in the past, I’ve done several parishes and I started doing 100-mile races and beyond. I’ve run from Belfast to Dublin and two years ago I did Liverpool to Leeds which was 130 miles,’ Mr Bassett said.

’At the end of it I felt really good, I had a lot of energy left.

’A friend of mine had done this two years ago and I thought I’d give it a go.’

Looking to the future, Mr Bassett hasn’t made any plans yet.

He continued: ’I totally lost touch with reality and that’s quite scary and I don’t want to do that again. I’ve spent 18 months planning to win this race and now I’ve got to come up with something to fill the gap.

’Maybe I’ll wait until after Christmas though!’

You can donate to his JustGiving page at justgiving.com/fundraising/lonlasultra