Now that is more like it

Monday : 3 miles and 1500ft behind house
Tuesday : 4 miles somewhere off the A34
Wednesday : now't. In London
Thursday : 45 mins on indoor cycle while watching Shameless
Friday : 7 miles and 2500ft
Saturday : 500ft on hill behind house and 19 minutes flat out on road bike
Sunday : 22miles, 12000ft 4 reps of Cader Idris in 9 hours.

so a total of 34 miles and 16,500ft which is far more like it.

Sunday was a great day, each time round Cader Idris was different in terms of weather, light and the view. 1st reps was in the mist and too 70 minutes, 2nd was 75 minutes, 3rd and 4th I just did, but a little under 9 hours with 20 minutes eating back at the car, no stops at all on the way round bar the odd minute or two of chat.

I felt better after the 4th rep than I did after the 3rd. At the top on the 4th rep my legs felt they had more climb left in them, though it would hurt to drag it out. I was descending well even at the end. In some ways Cader is a harder route than the 1st 2 legs of the BGR and in some ways easier, so 4 reps on just a climb basis would be like getting to Steel fell. I did not drink enough on the 1st 2 reps which probably explained why rep 3 was hard (Nuun to the rescue). It is curious in March to be running with your shirt off.

The important thing for me is that I felt better at the end of 4 reps yesterday than when I did 3 reps in July/August time last year. So I think I am probably fitter than I was in September last year which is important. So now its down to getting a couple more long days out, training to raise my VO2max just a little, getting the planning and my head in absolutely the right place.

Plan for this week is to do no climb, just do miles (I am duty manager for the week so can't disappear into the hills where the is no cell phone reception) and then a week on monday have a solid day out in the Lakes.

Bug

Last week was good for 3 days, then 2 days of a mild stomach bug, a race in the shadow of a stomach bug and then a day with a mild stomach bug.

Monday : 3 miles and 500ft
Tuesday : 5 miles flat while waiting for budding Gymnast
Wedneday : 10m & 3000ft, Route of Ras-Y-Aran
Thuesday : Blah
Friday : Blah
Saturday : 10m & 3000ft Ras-Y-Aran with stomach cramps, so 2.08. Had hoped for at least 8 mins faster, but legs went to jelly 1/2 way down and stomach cramps for about 1 3/ of the race.
Sunday : Blah

Good amount of climb in the bank, but far too little. At least I learned to run with stomach cramps which may be a useful life skill, but I don't want to test it out in May.

Welsh Fell Running, not trains or pensions

Article number 3 for the Wales@home website is not about trains or pensions, but Fell Running in Wales.

Not sure I would have called it "Running up that Hill", but the editors have a very sound grasp of their audience. I do love the diversity of this site, the next article was about the Assembly Government to take direct control of Anglesey Council. I do feel I wrote one of the lightest weight articles they have had on the site for a while.

Note to self : charge torch battery before night runs

I normally do reasonably well in terms of taking what is needed when out and about. On Saturday I did the course (with some slight detours) of the Pumlumon Challenge. Encountered a D.O.E. group who did a good job of pretending to be lost in toward the bottom of the Hen Gwyn valley (the most remote place in Wales, unless you know different?), Drosgol went fine and found the secret quad bike tracks which gives a very fast descent, round Nant-y-Moch, over the road and feeling on the home leg as it got dark and rained, I had planned to run the last hour in the dark away. I did 8 reps of the hill by the house the night before, so legs were getting tired as I tried to pick my way across the Land Rover (typically stuck) tracks through the bog, then my torch started flashing. I did have a spare, but it was very weedy and near useless. I had a backup spare which doubles as my phone, but decided to keep that as torch of last resort. Despite knowing this area really well, this was not good. A flashing torch with about 10 minutes light left and it was wet and dark and we were in the middle of a bog.

Last week I mentioned "the Beast" and we had been toying with each other for the previous 2 or 3 miles. Time for some clear thinking, so got into reverse and got back to the road around Nant-Y-Moch at full pace. Any hint of being tired disappeared and ran with a flashing torch close to full speed for about 5 minutes to get back to the road. At least if worst came to worst I could walk back along the road, though an lot of extra miles. As it happened, there was enough light to see along a well defined path once your eyes got used to the near dark and I took a well defined and much shorter track back to Nant-y-Arian.

Apart from the obvious, don't assume a battery has enough juice left in it, take the spare battery and a more capable back-up torch, don't pack in a hurry, the interesting bits are that when required all hints of fatigue went in a moment, for at least the next hour. This run could have been really bad if I had not got a complete mental picture of the area or if it was 100% dark (fortunately there was some moon light through the clouds), I could have been sat in a bog all night wrapped in my space blanket with a wet Golden Retriever. Being so close to home and knowing the hills well, liberties are taken which maybe should not be. Still lots learned/reminded of and a very good run out.

• Monday : 5 miles and 1000ft
• Tuesday : 5 miles on sports field waiting for small girl at gymnastics
• Wednesday : 6 miles with Brother Haslam in woods near Camberly
• Thursday : rest
• Friday : 3 miles, 2500ft 8 reps of hill behind house
• Saturday : 26 miles and 5000ft over rough ground
• Sunday : rest

A helpful hint which I got from one of Mark Smith's blogs was to put Skins under your trousers the day after a big day out and indeed it does seem to help.

Thinking about doing the Ras y Aran next weekend as I missed it last year, but will have to put the climb in across the rest of the week.

Searching for the beast in Croesor village

Slate Quaries that the Moelwyn race passes through. Image the scene 100 years plus ago. Perfect weather to get the full slate effect !

What a house!

Snowdonia's 1st ski lift. Sadly now disused.

Last week when I was out doing leg 2 of the BGR with Jim Mann in horrible weather he told me to get and read a book call Born To Run and that I needed to make friends with the beast. Since then Jim has since achieve the record for the BGR in winter, it is reasonable to assume there may be something in it. I spent most of this week in Prague so when I got a text while at Bristol airport that Jim was looking for pacers next day I was gutted I could not make it. Still I have read most of the book and it does mention the beast which is the negative side of your character which does its best to stop you running when you are exhausted. I have seen the beast (Highland Fling 2009 we danced for about 8 hours together), but yet to really make friends with it and enjoy its company which was Jim's view and one of the perspectives of the book. Read the book and then tell me I am talking ballocks.

So one of the goals of Saturdays run was to wake the beast up a little and get to know it again. A conflicting goal was to learn to eat and drink when I neither needed to or wanted to, which is a good way of delaying the onset of the beast coming out to play.

Hound and I parked at Aberglaslynn and we just ran with a rough aim of going over Cnicht. You can see why the Paddy is 30-45 minutes harder than the BGR, the ground is just rougher to travel over. We just ran north to start with for a few miles, then back to Cnicht and down into Croesor Village and back to the car. About 18 miles and 5k of climb, but the 1st 13 miles were much harder than the last 5.

Just as you get into Croesor Village I found absolute proof that a god exists. Not sure what form they take, but at just the point the beast was starting to stretch it legs, coffee cake and tea put it back to sleep with a very solid thump. Running the last 3 or so miles back to the car was much easier. Food and tea is a powerful mix.

The rest of the week was a bit of a loss. 2 nights in the Gym in the hotel for about an hour on the stair stepping machine and a couple of days where I seemed to have picked up a mild stomach bug, so not a full weeks training. Still, Saturday was good and I did poke around and work on my weakness

• After about 13 mountain miles I slow down compared to the schedule. Post 20-24 miles I am probably moving at about the schedule and can climb well, but have lost time and the associated psychological effects come into play. I need to work on what leg 2 speed, while still not fast, is a bit faster than I have been going. This means hard runs between 4 and 7 hours in duration are my primary focus for the next few weeks.

Nutter of the week award goes to ........

.... this week goes to Jim Mann for his 20hrs 39mins, day before the winter cut off, Bob Graham Round.

I am disappointed I was away with work and could not be there to pace him [ read struggle to keep up ]. Very impressive effort. We went out running on the previous Wednesday over leg 2 and he is in great shape, so not at all surprised he made it in I think record winter time.