By Luke Dalton. Published 27 July 2026.

In 30 Seconds

The Beacons Way Ultra 100 is a 100 mile ultramarathon by GB Ultras that crosses Bannau Brycheiniog, the Brecon Beacons National Park, from Abergavenny Castle to Llangadog along the Beacons Way National Trail, with 6,143 metres of ascent and a 40 hour cutoff. I ran it on 25 July 2026 and finished in 36 hours and 1 minute, with my watch logging 103.65 miles and 22,113 feet of climbing. I fuelled the caffeine side of the race almost entirely with our own Red On caffeine pouches, which got me through the night without leaning on gels.

Fuel your own long one: shop Red On caffeine pouches, 100mg of caffeine per pouch in a 225mg active stack, zero sugar, nicotine free.

What the Beacons Way Ultra 100 Actually Is

GB Ultras bills it as the Race Across Bannau Brycheiniog, and the name undersells it. The route follows the Beacons Way National Trail from the castle ruins in Abergavenny to the finish at Llangadog RFC, crossing the Black Mountains, the central Beacons including Pen y Fan, and the Carmarthen Fans on the way. It is a self navigation event: map and compass competence is mandatory, and entry requires a completed 50 mile race beforehand. The field is capped at 250 places, there are 10 checkpoints, and the event carries UTMB Performance Index and ITRA points with live GPS tracking through GB Race Tracker.

Finishing earns a buckle: gold for the top 100, silver for 101 to 200, bronze beyond that. For scale on what the front of this race looks like, the course records set in 2025 stand at 21 hours 41 minutes for the men and 26 hours 26 minutes for the women. Most of us are not racing those times. We are racing the cutoff and the mountains.

How My Race Went

I ran as bib 264, alongside a group of mates who were spread through the field. Two things define this course: the climbing never really stops, and the night in the middle is where the race is decided. My watch put the day at 103.65 miles with 22,113 feet of elevation gain, which is watch measured and slightly generous against the official 6,143 metres, and I crossed the line at 36 hours and 1 minute, inside the 40 hour cutoff with the buckle to show for it. I finished side by side with a mate, which is exactly how a race like this should end.

I will not dress it up as anything other than what it was: a rollercoaster of a weekend. Thirty six hours moving through the Beacons breaks the race into three different jobs. The first is running while it feels like running. The second is the night, where pace stops mattering and staying awake, warm and pointed the right way is the whole sport. The third is the morning after, where you find out whether your fuelling held up.

Fuelling Through the Night: Pouches, Not Gels

Here is the part that surprised even me. I was nailing our Red On caffeine pouches through the race, and they are the reason the night section worked. They got me through the dark hours and meant I did not have to rely on gels for the caffeine side of my fuelling.

One honest distinction before anyone copies the strategy: a caffeine pouch is not food. It carries no calories, so it does not replace eating, and the checkpoints with hot food still did the energy work. What the pouch replaces is the caffeinated gel and the cold 3am coffee, and it does that job better for three plain reasons. First, dosing. Each pouch delivers 100mg of caffeine, so I always knew exactly where my intake stood, which matters at hour 30 when arithmetic is hard. Second, the gut. Deep into an ultra, sweet gels get harder and harder to stomach, and a pouch asks nothing of a stomach that has been working for a day and a half. Third, logistics. A pouch needs no water, no sachet to tear with dead fingers, and no stopping. It sits in and works while you keep moving through the dark.

How I Would Time Caffeine Over 36 Hours

The mistake most runners make in an overnight race is treating caffeine like a morning routine: a big hit early, then nothing until they are already falling asleep on a climb. Over 36 hours the smarter shape is the opposite. Go light or caffeine free through the first daylight hours while adrenaline and fresh legs are doing the work, so your tolerance is not already spent when it matters. Start feeding in 100mg doses as the light goes, and hold a steady rhythm through the night rather than saving everything for the lowest point, because by the time you feel the crash you are chasing it rather than preventing it. Then taper as the second morning arrives and daylight takes over the job. A pouch format makes this trivially easy to execute: the doses are fixed, they need no water or stopping, and you can run the whole plan from a pocket. That is the plan I would hand to anyone toeing the line at a race like this, with one caveat: practise it on a long training run first, because hour 30 is a bad time to discover how you personally respond.

Planning Your Own Beacons Way 100

If this race has gone on your list, the entry mechanics matter as much as the training. GB Ultras requires every entrant to have completed at least a 50 mile ultramarathon under race conditions before race day, and solo or training runs do not count. The event is self navigated, so the GPX files published for the route are guides rather than the course, and map and compass competence is expected, including the possibility of low level routes if severe weather moves in. Entry for 2026 was 209 pounds with the field capped at 250.

On the day, the support structure is better than the self navigation billing suggests. The 10 checkpoints carry drinks and snacks, the indoor ones serve hot food and hot drinks, medics are present at every checkpoint, and drop bags are transported to two mid race checkpoints, which is where the spare socks, the warm layer and the resupply of pouches want to be. Live GPS tracking through GB Race Tracker means the people at home can watch the dot instead of waiting for a call. Build the plan around the checkpoints: eat properly at the indoor ones, keep the between sections about movement, and let the caffeine plan run independently of the food plan so neither wrecks the other.

The Evidence on Caffeine and Endurance

Caffeine is the most studied legal performance aid in endurance sport, and the safety side has a clear reference point. The European Food Safety Authority, EFSA, the EU's food science body, published its Scientific Opinion on the Safety of Caffeine in the EFSA Journal in 2015. It concluded that single doses up to 200mg raise no safety concerns for healthy adults, including when consumed less than two hours before intense exercise under normal conditions, and that habitual intake up to 400mg a day raises no concerns for non pregnant adults. It also noted that single 100mg doses can delay sleep in some people, which in the middle of a 36 hour race is not a side effect, it is the point.

The practical read for ultra running: 100mg steps are a sensible unit. They sit at half of EFSA's single dose reference, they are small enough to time repeatedly through a night, and they avoid the all at once spike of a strong coffee at a checkpoint followed by nothing for three hours.

What Is Actually in a Red On Pouch

Each pouch carries a 225mg active stack: 100mg of caffeine from green coffee bean extract, 50mg of Alpha GPC, 50mg of L-theanine and 25mg of Beta Alanine, with zero sugar and no tobacco or nicotine. We are straight about the formulation: the caffeine and L-theanine sit at the pairing endurance athletes will recognise, while the Alpha GPC and Beta Alanine are stacking doses rather than full clinical doses, there to support the blend rather than headline it. A tin holds 20 pouches at 9.99 pounds, in Coffee and Arctic Mint, and as far as we know it remains the only UK caffeine pouch built around a formulated multi active stack rather than caffeine alone.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Beacons Way Ultra 100?

The Beacons Way Ultra 100 is a 100 mile ultramarathon organised by GB Ultras across Bannau Brycheiniog, the Brecon Beacons National Park. It follows the Beacons Way National Trail from Abergavenny Castle to Llangadog RFC with 6,143 metres of ascent, 10 checkpoints and a 40 hour cutoff, and it is a self navigation event requiring map and compass skills.

How hard is the Beacons Way Ultra 100?

It is one of the tougher 100 mile races in the UK. Entry requires a previously completed 50 mile ultramarathon, navigation is unsupported, and the route crosses the Black Mountains, Pen y Fan and the Carmarthen Fans. The 2025 course records stand at 21 hours 41 minutes for men and 26 hours 26 minutes for women, and the field is limited to 250 runners.

What time did Luke Dalton finish the Beacons Way Ultra 100 in?

Contact Coffee Co founder Luke Dalton finished the 2026 Beacons Way Ultra 100 in 36 hours and 1 minute, inside the 40 hour cutoff, with his watch recording 103.65 miles and 22,113 feet of elevation gain.

Do caffeine pouches work for ultra running?

Caffeine pouches deliver caffeine without water, calories or gut load, which makes them practical deep into an ultra when gels become hard to stomach. They are a caffeine strategy rather than an energy strategy: they do not replace food, but they replace caffeinated gels and checkpoint coffee with a measured 100mg dose that can be timed through the night.

How much caffeine is in a Red On pouch?

Each Red On pouch contains 100mg of caffeine from green coffee bean extract, inside a 225mg active stack that also carries 50mg of Alpha GPC, 50mg of L-theanine and 25mg of Beta Alanine. The pouches are zero sugar, tobacco free and nicotine free.

How much caffeine is safe during a race?

EFSA's 2015 Scientific Opinion on the Safety of Caffeine concluded that single doses up to 200mg raise no safety concerns for healthy adults, including less than two hours before intense exercise, and that habitual intake up to 400mg a day raises no concerns for non pregnant adults. Longer events spread over more than a day give more room to space doses out, and 100mg steps make that spacing easy to manage.

Do you need navigation experience for the Beacons Way Ultra?

Yes. The Beacons Way Ultra is a self navigation event and GB Ultras states that the ability to competently navigate with a map and compass is mandatory. GPX files are provided as guides only, and entrants must have completed at least a 50 mile ultramarathon under race conditions before race day.

What do finishers of the Beacons Way Ultra 100 get?

Finishers earn a buckle: the top 100 finishers receive the gold Beacons Way Ultra 100 buckle, finishers from 101 to 200 receive a silver 100 mile buckle, and finishers beyond 200 receive the bronze buckle. The event also awards UTMB Performance Index and ITRA points.

Where can I buy Red On caffeine pouches?

Red On caffeine pouches are available directly from contactcoffee.com in Coffee and Arctic Mint, at 9.99 pounds for a tin of 20 pouches. Each pouch carries 100mg of caffeine within a 225mg multi active stack.

Get the Fuel

The pouches that went through 36 hours of the Beacons: shop Red On caffeine pouches. 20 pouches per tin, 100mg caffeine each, zero sugar.

Related Guides

Caffeine Pouches UK: the full guide to what caffeine pouches are, how they work and how UK options compare.

The Red On Range: every high caffeine format we make, from the third strongest coffee in the world to the pouches.

How Much Caffeine Is in Coffee: the numbers behind cup strength, useful for planning race day intake.

Red On Caffeine Pouches: the product page, with the full ingredient breakdown.

References and Further Reading

GB Ultras: Beacons Way Ultra 100 Mile: the official race page with route, rules, qualifying criteria, buckle tiers and course records.

GoTrail: Beacons Way Ultra 100 Mile: independent race listing confirming distance, ascent, checkpoints, cutoff and the 2026 date.

EFSA Journal: Scientific Opinion on the Safety of Caffeine (2015): the European Food Safety Authority assessment behind the 200mg single dose and 400mg daily figures.