He’d been there, seen it and done it before – and he’d even got the t-shirt – but that didn’t stop Patrick Kingston putting himself up for a second go at the CxM Sierra Blanca “Destroyer“. With a distance of 43.2km and an elevation gain of over 2,800 metres, it’s a very demanding course that will take virtually any runner to their limit.

Staged in the marvellous mountains of Marbella, the terrain can be technical at times and requires physical strength, concentration and a lot of determination. Very little phases Patrick though and he is always up for testing himself in the toughest of environments.

In last year’s race he completed the course in just under 7 hours 39 minutes so that would have given him a target to aim for. In an event like this though, just making it to the finish is a huge achievement, in whatever time you do it.

Since his brother lives in Marbella, Patrick was out there over New Year and got a bit of mountain marauding in then. Since then he’s regularly been out on the Purbeck, getting his fix of big climbs in, often in the Kingston area, funnily enough. He is of course, no stranger to hitting the high peaks in races either.

He’s done the Nivolet-Revard 55k which is in the French Alps, incorporating 2,860 metres of ascent. He’s also conquered the Krakonošov 100k in Czechia where he had to work his way through 13,000ft of ascent. He’s also run 88 miles of the TDS route from the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc in training over three consecutive days.

The climbing in the Sierra Blanca “Destroyer” race starts straight away and it doesn’t really stop until you get 20.7 miles. The remaining six miles after that are mostly downhill. Even descending on this type of terrain can be tricky though and one false move could easily send you tumbling to the desk.

They’d had quite a bit of rain recently in that part of the world so the trail was a little over grown which made it even more tricky. At one stage Patrick fell off the trail and used a gorse bush to break his fall. Needless to say, he picked up a few scrapes and scratches from that, along with some splinters.

In these sorts of races there is always a risk of something like that happening though and if it does, you pick yourself up, dust yourself down and carry on, provided no serious injury has been sustained.

Patrick was okay though and persevered with his run. He ended up getting over the finish line in a time of 7 hours 35 minutes and 48 seconds, so three minutes quicker than what he managed last year, despite the fall.

It was a really strong run from Patrick and he’d amassed over 10,000ft of elevation over the course of his 27.73 mile run. It was a monumental effort.

Finishing in 47th place, he’d come  in as 25th placed vet. A total of 184 runners successfully negotiated the course that day, with the slowest ones taking over 10 hours.

The winner of the race was Jesus Gil Garcia and he got round in 5 hours 21 minutes and 41 seconds. Victor Pimentel Carretero took second in 5:39:18, with Ruben Heemskerk Blacksmith securing third place in 5:45:22.

Although the route was difficult and despite suffering the scrapes along the way, Patrick had great fun out there and that’s what its all about. He loves challenging himself in the high mountains or over some gruelling hills and there will certainly be more of that to come throughout the year as he builds up his summitbag total. That has now reached over 8,174 metres for the year so far.