I really enjoyed the leg over the Carneddau. Starting at the back I slowly passed folks and had great fun. Coming down into the Ogwen Valley via a fantastic descent to the Ogwen MRT hut, I could feel that part of the 3/4 of a Bob Graham Round was still in my legs. I had drunk loads, but my legs were just tired. A quick survey of web wisdom suggests at least a month is needed to recover from a big outing. I entered this race last year, but got my entry deferred for a year because I was intending to do the BGR in June. Ideally, I should have got my entry changed to the short race. Going up the very interesting route to Glyder Fawr was very hard work. Legs were weak and starting the descent to Pen-Y-Pass my quad's were not happy. I am not sure if I would have carried on the last leg, it was still an open question was I descended along the start of the red spot path.
At about 2500ft I ran past 5 people sitting/lying in a lovely location, but all was clearly not right. A runner from my club was clearly in quite a lot of pain. Actually, it was well aligned with my imagination of what someone having a stroke looked like, and then some. A woman out walking with her 2 sons tuned out the be a nurse (Our friend having convulsions and being sick is a lucky boy to have a qualified palliative care nurse on hand). He claimed that he has had this condition before, it passes and he spend a year at the pleasure of the medical profession trying to find the cause. I am a great believer in leaving decisions to those who probably have the best knowledge to take such a decision and at some point the 3 adults (a fellow lady runner who found out poor unfortunate 1st, nurse and myself) decided it was time to get this chap off the mountain as he was not recovering.
As I attempted to contact mountain rescue via a phone, he started being sick. MRT were busy with other incident, so I was put through to the police who really had no clue of the questions to ask or that information like a grid reference, altitude and we are on the red spot path at this altitude between Pen-y-Pass and Glyder Fawr would give a very accurate description that the MRT could use. Instead she asked if we were on Snowdon, what the chaps name was (I had not idea) and how old was he. About 10 minutes after making the call our poor unfortunate has recovered enough to walk slowly. He did have to stop every so often, but was recovering. We were called back by the MRT coordinator, I said he was now able to move under his own steam and they agreed to keep the incident open and I would call them back when he was safe.
We were joined by a marshall and on the descent encounter some MRT out training and about to be picked up by a big yellow helicopter[who's pilot may owe me 3 quid for paying for part of his wedding]. Our poor unfortunate point blank refused to entertain any thought of getting in the big yellow taxi in the sky, even though it was hovering above him. Why? ....... in case his wife found out. The impression he gave was that to get him on the other end of a winch line, we would have had to knock him out first, which would have really gone against the point of the exercise.
We got down to Pen-Y-Pass, it took a while, but all was well.
I pondered if we did the right thing to call the MRT, even though they were not in a position to help as they were busy elsewhere. I concluded yes. He was showing no signed of improvement, a qualified nurse was getting worried and we were in a relatively remote place. He recovered, but what if it had continued.
Our passing nurse was a absolute star, every mountain should to have one.
The incident gave me an excuse to drop out of the race which given my lack of pace I was probably quite happy about it. All I did was talking on the phone and bag carrying, any turkey can do that.
Should our friend have entered the long race, given he has had this problem before on long races? I also pondered on that and decided it is not for me to judge. I don't know his personal circumstance. Its not what I would do, but I also think he is less irresponsible than many of the walker on Snowdon. He was well equipped, kept himself well hydrated and is a experienced runner.
2 year ago there was foul weather and hypothermia. This year, a chap with having an impressive set of convulsions of unknown cause. I am going to have to think very hard before entering this race again.
Congratulation to Sam Smith, one of my esteemed BGR pacers from 3 weeks previous who finished 2nd.
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