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.