lazyotter

Ever since some 10 years ago when out walking on Cader Idris with a friend, I saw at a very cloudy wet summit, a fell runner in shorts and t-shirt effortlessly pop up out of the mist, touch the trig-point and set off back down over the boulders to no doubt some glorious feeling of satisfaction. From that point on I held onto that image in my head, and harboured the ambition of one day being fit and crazy enough to run up this particularly steep and rocky mountain.

On Saturday I accomplished one of my lifetime goals by running in the 10.5 mile Cader Idris Fell Race

The race started in Dolgellau town square and climbed up to the summit of Cader Idris (893m) via the Pony Path. A map of the there-and-back race route is here. The terrain was challenging and varied, and included 3000ft of climbing.

I started the 5 mile of ascending rather conservatively, due to the hot sun making things warm up very quickly. Then I did my usual thing of gradually moving up the field on the ascent, saving energy for a manic downhill ticket to oblivion.

I came 26th out of 191 finishers in 01:46:47. The results are here. I’m both very pleased and extremely surprised.

I took part in the Burbage Skyline fell race last tuesday night in the Peak District. Was a good run with very challenging terrain, mainly rocks! I guess 75% of the 5.75 miles was skimming over the tops of rocks, which soon led to sore eyes (as they were glued to the ground to prevent ankle snapping).

The route covered some lovely scenery - rocky paths, forest, streams, moors… Bit of everything really. There’s a map here. Unfortunately, due to the danger involved at taking one’s eyes off the path at high speed there wasn’t much time to have a good look around! It seemed that having pure speed was not the key to a fast time, but more so having the smooth technique required to choose the best path through and over the rocks without losing pace.

I came 53rd out of 275. The results are here. Very much enjoyed this one. Also big thanks to my mate Steve for the burden of driving us there.

Photos taken on Ian’s Berwyns walk. Thanks to Ian for the hard work and an ace day.

As my legs were aching quite badly from the previous day’s fell race on Y Garn, I decided I needed to toughen up a bit. And so on this bank holiday monday I thought I’d go for a little walk.

I headed again to Snowdonia, and from Llanberris walked up the Llanberris path to summit Snowdon, followed by Garnedd Ugain and Crib Goch. On Crib Goch I met a couple of chaps (Dave & Tony) who’d been scrambling/climbing and were on their way back down. I hooked up with them and they kindly led me over Crib Goch and down it’s less well known north ridge. We descended to the road via Dinas Mott, during which I slipped on some large loose scree and narrowly missed breaking some bones! Got quite a deep cut on one finger, another very squashed finger and lots of scrapes and grazes. Luckily it wasn’t too far to the road at this point, and the chaps kindly gave me a lift back to Llanberris.

And now I’m properly tired. Stopped for a steak on the way back and it didn’t touch the sides.

I’m afraid I must confess that my visit to these mountains was not coincidental. Recently I have discovered the “Welsh 3000“. This is a challenge of summiting all the highest Welsh mountains (over 3000ft) in a day, some 26 miles and 3600m of climbing. Its possible to walk these in a day, but its also possible to run them……… Now you can probably see what I’m getting at.

Last sunday I took part in the Y Garn fell race from Rhyd Ddu near Beddgelert. This was officially my first experience in a mountain race. Coincidentally this was also a WFRA (Welsh Fell Running Association) Open Championship event.

All fell races use the two letter scheme of classification, A/B/C meaning the amount of climbing/terrain involved, and S/M/L for short (up to 6 miles), medium (up to 12 miles) and long (more!). The Y Garn race is classed as “AS”, a short but fast 3 mile race involving 1500ft of climbing - this translates to a right b*gger of a hill to climb up in 1.5 miles! There’s a map of the route here.

I came 25th out of 93, which isn’t too bad for a first try. The results are available here.

I started off quite cautiously staying in the back half of the pack until the climb. Then I just kept my head down and slugged it out up the mountain passing as many people as I could without getting too exhausted. The summit was in the clouds and here the real running began. In fell racing it is most often the descents where time is made up or lost. I think I did quite well on the treacherously steep grassy slope, and overtook maybe 4 people. However, having reached the bottom with a killer stitch I had little energy left for the short quarter mile or so to the finish, and lost some places back.

There are various photos of me in the race and even a video courtesy of TeamDolly.co.uk.

Links to photos…
http://lh5.ggpht.com/brymills/SB9Oq0PK6GI/AAAAAAAADOc/KmoyQUlhmdA/DSC01808.JPG?imgmax=640
http://lh5.ggpht.com/the.unfranked.man/SB6n6KYWtZI/AAAAAAAAONU/NDxXxIkZQVE/TYE_9624.jpg?imgmax=640
http://lh3.ggpht.com/pete.macmillen/SB39c-CivXI/AAAAAAAAEEI/6q2lpOoFu88/IMG_5364.JPG?imgmax=576
http://lh6.ggpht.com/brymills/SB9PqEPK6tI/AAAAAAAADTc/gJv6cDClfgk/DSC01847.JPG?imgmax=640
http://images.kodakgallery.eu.com/photos454/2/20/31/57/74/96/9674573120233_0_ALB.jpg

And it’s now wednesday and my legs are still aching!

Photos taken out walking when visiting my friend Nic in Haslingden.