lazyotter

Just back from the Cropredy folk festival. Was very good as was expected. Great to get the gang together again, for 3 days of nearly good weather (Saturday was very wet!). Apparently I got naked at one point, although that’s another story. I also did the Hash House Harriers trail run/hunt on the wet Saturday morning (on on!) which was absolutely splendid fun - huge thanks to the organisers! Following this we were treated to free pints of Wadworths ale (not the best post-run therapy!) and even got to meet Fred West (aka Mr Wadworth - the festival sponsor) himself.

(Click on the above pic to see more)

The festival highlight for me was the surprise guest appearance of Robert Plant during Fairport’s set, who sung Led Zep’s Battle of Evermore as a tribute to Sandy Denny. I also very much enjoyed Mark Radcliffe’s The Family Mahone and Siobhan Miller/Jeana Leslie. Such a shame the weekend went so quickly. On Sunday I also explored Banbury a bit - rather a pleasant little place. Can’t remember how that nursery rhyme goes though.

I competed in the WFRA Open Waun Fach fell race in the Brecon Beacons on Saturday. 7 miles with 2000ft of climbing. Arrived with just 10 mins to spare before the start after a mad 3hr dash down there from Chester.
Finished 13th out of 49 overall, in 62:31. The full results are here.

Some pictures were taken… Many thanks for these!

www.richk.co.uk

Richard Kenington

Was a tough drive home and red bull was needed to keep me going.

This evening I took part in the “Hot Foot Up Famau” fell race on the Clwydian hills. 3.5 miles doesn’t sound too bad, but when you add the 1200ft of climbing, it makes for rather a steep gradient! There’s a map of the route here.

The route drops down from the start through thick bracken, difficult to see where you’re going. Then a sharp ascent of maybe 250ft to the fort punishes significantly. Down the grassy bank the other side, noticed my lace was undone so stopped to tie it, amazingly didn’t lose a place… Then begins the long slog of nearly 1000ft to the summit of Moel Famau, firstly through thick bracken, nettles, gorse and thistles (lots of scrapes - will hurt tomorrow!), then followed by lots of it scree. The last section is approx 1.5 miles straight down the gravel path back to the start. Noticed the same lace had come undone again here, but couldn’t be bothered to tie it and carried on hurtling down the slope with no regard for my well-being.

Finished 13th out of 57. Very enjoyable race indeed. I should really do some training sometime.

As it was just up the road I couldn’t miss out on taking part in “The Druid” fell race, starting from the Druid pub in Llanferres. This was an “AS” race of 5 miles and 1200ft. Unfortunately for the participants (or perhaps fortunately, if like me you prefer more punishment) today has been one of the wettest and windiest in weeks. This made the going quite tough as there was a good quantity of rain, wind and mud served up.

I wasn’t particularly strong in the first half of the race and generally felt a bit listless. I also can’t remember where the route went exactly but I do recall being narrowly missed by a charging bull when we ran through his field (the chap in front of me was wearing a red shirt). Surely running on mountains is risky enough, without further threat from the wildlife?

For some time I was kept busy battling with a stitch that I picked up on the first big climb. Having successfully managed to get this under control (and amazingly without losing any places) I managed to find my legs a bit just before shrewdly leading my trailing pursuers the wrong way! This was promptly fixed by several suicidal bounds down the mountain in thick heather to the correct path. After about 3 miles the descending started and I made up a few places here and there by disengaging my common sense, and then settled in a good strong pace for the last few miles. Lots of fun, but not my best race.

Think I finished somewhere in the top 30, in about 40.5 mins approx.

(Photo courtesy of Dave Pinnington Photography)

I may have mentioned that I’ve recently lost weight and occasionally experience periods of insomnia. Obviously I need toughening up a lot more…both physically and mentally, to cope with the worst that life dishes out (yes I am being sarcastic!).

Did two runs today, 40 mins round the Heath at lunch with my mate Steve, and a hard 5 mile training session on Moel Famau this evening (see map).

Hopefully some demons will rest, and I’ll sleep tonight!

Tonight I ran the “Trail Race up the Beast”, a 4 mile fell run taking in 1200ft. It started from the Miners pub in Maeshafn, near my current home in Mold, so would have been rude not to go. Afraid I was feeling pretty lousy during the day, quite tired and with an upset stomach, and this made the going even tougher! I really seemed to be lacking energy from the off, and struggled with 2 stitches along the way. Despite this, it was still great fun.

The route was mostly on forest paths with some exciting descending through the trees, just steep enough to go flat out without falling off! There were also some fallen logs to hurdle, just to add to the mix. The “Beast” turned out to be a very steep and long grassy bank which appeared out nowhere. It certainly lived up to it’s name. There was also some rather pleasant fells and several strength-sapping steps back up through the woods.

I’m not sure where I finished yet, but will update this when I find out.

Having just weighed myself I also seem to have lost a few pounds (that I didn’t really need to lose!). Either through running or my dodgy tummy it turns out I’m down to 8 stone 9 lbs. Bit worrying. There’s not much left on me to lose…

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.

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!

Last sunday as it was snowing and almost certainly not a good idea to be out on the Welsh hillside, I did the opposite and went fell running around Worlds End.

From Worlds End I headed up the road and climbed Cyrn-y-Brain (565m) on snow covered mud tracks. From the summit I descended down the concrete track a short way to find myself behind two horse-mounted police officers. I politely said good morning to them and learned that they were looking for illegal moto-x riders who were damaging the area with their bikes. Next they told me that I wasn’t on a public right of way and I was trespassing. I told them honestly that I wasn’t aware of this, despite having walked in the area for years. They then proceeded to lecture me on damage to the environment while I stood on the blustery snow covered mountain side in my shorts and t-shirt quietly freezing (can you believe this s**t?!). I could hardly see how running on a concrete track was damaging the environment… Bloody idiots.

After I left the loony lone rangers I descended roughly 1200ft (running over lovely untouched snow) down to the road from Worlds End and then immediately began the climb up to the top of Ruabon mountain/Trevor Rocks. The climb (some 950ft in under a mile) went up over fields to reach a small thicket, then begun a very steep and challenging scramble over snow covered scree up to the cliff tops. I paused to take the pic (above) and then continued along the top of the rocks all the way back to Worlds End, battling against a sub-zero degree gale from the west.

There is a map of the route here.

Although it was a bit chilly at first (1 degree C in the car when I started!) I didn’t mind the cold once I got going. The sun came out a few times and I was amazed at how warm it felt. Running on the snow was a fun experience, and my Inov-8’s held up really well too - don’t think they lost grip at all apart from on the steep scree section.