Basking in Brecon

I’d agree with James… it’s taking longer than expected to make up for the lack of sleep. Three days after finishing the race, and now back home in Brecon, I am still swaying slightly. All in all, it is proving essential to avoid strenuous activities like unpacking, stripping wallpaper, or tiling. Instead I’m finding it necessary to move languidly between my bed and the garden for periods of approximately 2.5 hours at a time, absorbing essential vitamins from sunlight and strawberries and beer. I did manage to cut the grass this morning, but that’s not much of a challenge as our garden could fit on James’s yacht.

It has been great to catch up with Naomi and the kids, and to hear how the drama of the race unfolded from their perspective. Seeing me off to the boat, playing on the beach, the convoy leaving the harbour…

Later the concerns when our tracker stopped just short of Bardsey Sound – had we packed it in, were we wrecked on a rock? No messages could get through until about 1am to confirm that we were fine and heading into Carnarfon.

Then seeing us finish the Snowdon shuffle and head off into the Menai Straits…

Watching from the Menai Bridge as we negotiated the Swellies, and seeing Sea Fever run aground just in front of us (rear-left yacht, pointing in wrong direction!), while Moby J expertly lead us through…

Drifting under the Menai Bridge. Had we been boarded by Hari Krishnas? No, these were our “Practical Action” t-shirts.

And later, watching all the drama unfold when we were catching the leaders, ran aground in Whitehaven harbour, caught them again round Jura, etc etc!

Anyway, must go and do some more hard recovering. I might do the Coity race with Naomi tomorrow, if we can find somewhere suitable to chain the kids; I expect with my knackered legs and after so many miles of running slowly with a pack, I’ll not be far ahead of her.

The story so far

N.B written on Tuesday…

We are rolling around in a very light breeze, inching towards the Mull of Kintyre, with no other yachts in sight. We may be in about 5th place but we’ve not checked the tracking web site for a while, and our tracker is on the blink anyway, only sending our position occasionally.  The calm conditions mean a) I can write this, and b) Stewart is feeling fine, with not a bucket in sight. Here’s Stewart and Ben yesterday evening after the wind had dropped.

Back to Saturday… the jostling for the start was quite tense, though apparently quite relaxed and polite compared to an out-and-out sailing race, wheeling around checking watches and trying to hit the start line as the horn sounded (too soon means 1 hour penalty).

We got a flyer, crossing the start line in about 2nd place, and feeling the elation of the race being under way at last. Great to be flying along with the really fast boats.

And then we flew straight into a hole in the wind, that seemed to be about the size and shape of Autonomy… boats ahead and to the left of us were heeled over doing 6 knots, we were standing still feeling despondent for 20 minutes. Damon texted and asked if we had remembered to lift the anchor.

But soon we found wind again, and began a really lumpy ride out to Bardsey Sound, very rapidly establishing that Stewart had left his sea legs at home. I saw the sailors exchanging some “here we go again” looks, remembering the Scottish Islands Peaks Race 2008… But once he’d made friends with the “bucket of shame”, Stewart kept it together and worked out how to cope – in bed. I felt really bad as well, and almost chucked a few times.

Great sailing pulled us back through the fleet, and we reached Bardsey in perhaps 10th place.

Sometime in the night, we started getting messages from support crew Mike and Sally and others wondering if we were wrecked and clinging to a rock… our tracker had stuck, and it was only hours later we managed to get messages back to them that actually we were coming in to Carnarfon nicely.

We had no delays crossing the Carnarfon Bar, and so Stewart and I jumped off for our first run at 03:50 on Sunday – a lovely time for a run, especially a 24 mile one up Snowdon. The first challenge was finding our way through the lanes of Carnarfon, and negotiating safe passage with the pissed up locals who had fun chasing us and offering us White Lightning etc etc. On the 8 mile road out to the Ranger path we quickly overhauled Krishna’s runners (Israeli) who were perhaps used to running in the Negev, because they were wearing several layers head to toe, and running very slowly. Madam Wen’s runners (“Marvin” and Tobi Staines) were just behind us until we started the climb, when they dropped back fast. Were we over-stretching ourselves…? We felt good so just got on with it.

After grabbing food and bottles from Mike and Sally we hit the hill, climbing into cloud, until we detected that there was sunshine above. The summit stretch was stunning, with views of clouds and crags all around.

The summit was reached in about 2 hours 20. We were told we were now 9th, and the only team to run the summit stretch!

  I immediately turned my ankle while faffing with the camera, and Stewart hurtled off into the distance. Luckily I found my ankle again quickly, and caught up about half way down, passing two other teams (Sea Fever? and Moby J, whose runners looked absolutely shot).

The road back was a struggle, and my un-recce’d “shortcut” in Carnarfon turned out to have a 40 degree hill, but we made it to the boat, where Naomi and kids were watching. The kids seemed visibly dismayed – “Daddy you hardly look tired at all”! I was hiding it well.

Must just get some food – feeling a bit faint…

Mmm much better; rice pudding and a tin of fruit. Anyway, after Carnarfon comes the Menai Straits and the infamous Swellies. Light wind eased us to the first bridge where the fun starts, with Moby J and Sea Fever for company.

Then as we picked our line through the right-hand span, we saw that White Cloud was lying on her side on rocks just beyond the bridge. That was her race over.

Then a few minutes later, Sea Fever also grounded gently, showing us where not to go; she got off at the next tide and is now ahead of us again. A very nervy couple of hours saw us out into open sea past Puffin Island.

The sail to Whitehaven was much smoother, to Stewart’s relief, and we got some rest in preparation for the big Scafell Pike leg.

At Whitehaven harbour, we caught the leaders waiting to get into the harbour through the sea lock – a bit of lucky timing in our favour. They let EADS Innovation Works in first because she was the shallowest, giving us a 20 minute wait or so. Then we went into the lock with Kishinoor, Moby J and Torbellino.

 

Mike and Sally had our bikes at the kit check, and we set off a few minutes behind the Moby J runners, at 04:15, to cycle the 16 miles to Gillerthwaite YHA in Ennerdale. The pressure was on – the sailors had worked out that we needed to be back before about 11:45 to get out of the sea lock before low tide, giving us 7.5 hours to complete the leg. From past results I knew most teams take well over 8 hours, and although I knew Stewart and I were capable of the required time, I was not confident we could achieve it now. I took it gently on the bike, though Stewart had to try a bit harder as he was on a mountain bike frame wile I was on a roady. We eased off stiff legs, and arrived just behind the Moby J pair. After the 5 minute time-out, where Stewart made comprehensive use of the facilities, we started the run to Black Sail pass. After a quick chat, we left the Moby J’s behind and got into a great rhythm. Mike and Sally were at Wasdale Head as planned, with pots of custard and fruit – much appreciated. We knew EADS were 30 mins ahead at the start, so it was nice to hear the gap had not increased.

The Scafell climb is a real slog, made harder by literally hundreds of Three Peaks walkers coming down the same path.

We gained the summit in 1:10 from Wasdale, which was inside my targets, but the crux of this leg would be whether we could keep speed climbing back over Black Sail pass.

We flew down nicely, passing lots of following teams – oddly none of them had seen the leaders EADS’s Martin Beale and Indge – they must have taken a different descent route away from the main path, because Mike and Sally confirmed they returned 30 mins ahead still.

We slogged back over Black Sail and down the long forest track to the YHA, conquered the brutal hills out of Ennerdale on the bikes, and then started really motoring on the cycle track.

I led on the faster bike, Stewart draughting on my back wheel. After 40 minutes of this, and negotiating the twists and turns back into Whitehaven, I was genuinely as knackered as I’ve ever been, and just fell onto the boat after giving my Mum a very sweaty hug. We were back in time, at 11:30, after completing the leg in 7 hours 15 or so.

Our jubilation was short-lived… just outside the sea lock we ran aground somehow, and frantic bouncing on the boom, thrashing the engine, pulling with the anchor winch, etc wouldn’t shift us an inch. As the tide departed, the sailors hung their heads in shame…

… until they realised they could blame us – if we had run a bit faster the water wouldn’t have been so shallow!

Anyway, when the tide lifted us off we were still in 2nd, though we now had a chasing fleet of faster boats who overhauled us in the light evening winds. We are now lying 7th.

We’ve just checked the race web site, which has us in the lead after Whitehaven somehow, showing that we were 2nd on the Scafell Pike leg, only 1 minute behind the EADS pair in 7:10. Very chuffed, and if Stewart hadn’t needed to wash his hair four times in streams we might have nicked it!

Looking forward to the Ben.

The Pixie Run – to an absent friend

While browsing the shelves for a couple of novels to take on the boat, I stumbled upon “The Pixie Run”, by none other than our damaged ex-team-member Damon. So in sympathy and respect, I’ll take it along. I read it years ago when I first met the wee man; in those days he had a loft-full of them, and would thrust copies at total strangers all around Glasgow; these days it’s a collector’s item,  available only from a small corner shop in Bideford, and any of Damon’s friends; actually from anyone he’s met in the last 12 years. Seriously though, it’s a cracking read, considering it’s about running silly numbers of miles day after day after day, easting crusts, sleeping under the stars, a psychotic girlfriend, and several weird friends, mainly called Nigel (as far as I recall).

And this is where I first heard of our charity Practical Action, except in those days they were called “Intermediate Technology”. Here’s what it says on the back of The Pixie Run… “In February 1996, Damon Rodwell, a moderately successful club-standard ultra-runner [those were the days!] was on a trekking holiday in the Nepalese Himalayas when he was exposed to the work of Intermediate Technology, a British-based charity striving to improve the lives of the poor in the developing world. He was so impressed by the projects which Intermediate Technology were undertaking, and with their common-sense approach to sustainable change that he resolved to spend his summer on a fund-raising venture”…. (and the rest is history that you can read in the book!).

Anyway, I must go and finish packing, and pop this wee gem in to keep my spirits up. And you never know, we might run out of bog roll.

LAMMinated

A minor scare over the weekend… I checked the LAMM Saturday results and found no sign of Stewart & partner Matt in the Score class. Then they appeared as “mp” (missed point), suggesting they had indeed started but failed to complete day 1.

Monday morning, I was relieved to find Stewart at his desk in perfect nick, confirming that it was Matt who came a cropper (thank goodness – sorry Matt), with a possible broken foot/ankle. So to look on the bright side, having only run 2 hours on the Saturday instead of 13 hours over two days, Stewart will be nice and fresh for the 3PYR !

PS I’ve put together a complete team list, to help anyone watching the race or following the live tracking.

Foel Fras

While Stewart tackles the mighty LAMM, I travelled north yesterday for the Foel Fras race in the Carneddau at Abergwyngregyn, the journey made slightly more interesting by concerns for my disintegrating gearbox, with no first gear and a struggle for reverse. I needed to run Foel Fras to have any chance of winning the Welsh fell running championships (over 40s), but also I like doing new races on hills I’ve not visited before, and it looked like a good final training run before the 3PYR. The measured stats: 13 miles and 3600 feet of ascent.

Arriving with a couple of hours to spare before the race, I walked the last couple of miles of the course, which looked tricky from the map – this was to pay off in the race.

84 runners started, Math Roberts setting a storming pace and soon miles ahead. On the open hill I settled into third on the long climb of Drum, until a bad stitch throttled me back and I fell back to about 7th by the summit of Foel Fras. I’d been told the navigation after Carnedd Uchaf is really tricky, so it was really good to have a small group ahead and I just cruised along behind them feeling comfy. When Arwel passed me I realised I was being way too lazy, so I pushed a little to get to the top of Moel Wnion in about 5th, then gradually passed people on the rough descent to the sheepfold. At this stage I was with Paul Jones (Oswestry) and Jez Brown (Buckley), and I sensed they were tiring, so I took a slightly different line from them and turned up the turbo. For a while I didn’t know whether they were ahead or behind so kept blasting away, my calves beginning to twitch and lock with cramps. When we got onto the really steep last descent I knew they were behind and I could hold them off.

Pleased to get second place in 1:49, though humbled by the 10 minute gap behind Math Roberts, who finished very close to the record in 1:39. Good points in the bag for the championships, but I think it will be hard to beat Paul Jones overall, as he’ll do Moel Siabod (which I cannot do) while I do Black Mountains; since the later is a British Championship race, competition will be much fiercer, meaning I will get relatively few points. That will leave us both doing Clwydian Hills as the final counter…

For 2nd overall and 1st V40 I won £40 in vouchers for an outdoor shop in Conwy – hardly convenient, but I’d better put the £40 into our charity fund anyway and maybe I’ll find myself in Conwy one day…

Now time to put my feet up ’til the 3PYR, let my battered ankles and calves recover, ice a troublesome tendon, stretch my troublesome sciatic nerve, watch a bit of footy, drink a bit of beer, and sort out mountains of kit. And check the sailing forecasts! Can’t wait…

Duddon’s a dud

Preparations are askew at the moment, as we try to find a worthy replacement for Damon. Watch this space.

Meanwhile, James has taken Autonomy up to Barmouth, and I have recce’d the Snowdon route. We were camping at Shell Island, with a few million tiger moth caterpillars, and some other less hairy ones that I’ve yet to identify. Lois was desperate to climb Snowdon, and the 3PYR route goes up the the Ranger Path, which I’ve not done before, so off we set on the one rainy afternoon of the week. We saw a lot of cloud… then ran all the way down, arriving in Llanberis in 2 hours 45 minutes. Lois was deliriously knackered, and I was very proud of her because this was by far her longest outing on the hills. In the race we’ll hope to do that section in around 1.5 hours, but there’s also 8 miles on road at both ends!

Then I checked out Carnaerfon – how to get from the boat out onto the road to Snowdon (A4085), and how to get back from Llanberis again (A4086). The run back from Llanberis looks properly miserable – 8 miles of busy road with lots of hills – not looking forward to that much. We did find a fantastic chip shop right on the route as it comes back into Carnaerfon, but not sure if it will be open when we are passing.

Then we headed north to my Mum’s house in !shriek! West Cumbria, mainly to take in the Duddon race as a long training run. On the way to the race, we passed a pile of floral tributes at the location of one of Derek Bird’s shootings, and on the way back the village of Rowrah was full of police and press photographers. The 3PYR route goes through Rowrah on the bike.

The Duddon Race was terrible. I have absolutely no idea why, but at 8am I decided to fry up all the left-over roast potatoes from the night before, add a fried egg, re-heat a big bowl of chilli from the fridge, and scoff the lot. A fantastic start to the day if all you have on the schedule is lying on the sofa watching England get thrashed by Algeria, but not so good for a Lakeland Classic fell race of 18 miles and 7,000 feet of ascent, starting at 11am. Even jogging to registration was hard work, and the chilli burps were a warning to all. Then I lost my dibber, and had to dash around like a nutter just moments before the start, til I found it in the back of the car.

OK, the race… the moment we hit the first climb up Harter Fell I felt terrible, really nauseous, with panting shallow breathing and no energy, and it didn’t get any better. I wanted to pack it in, but thought that would be a terrible psychological precedent ahead of the 3PYR, so made up my mind to grind my way round no matter how slowly. On the notoriously fearsome climb up “Little Stand”, as I bent double howking and trying to rid myself of my breakfast burden, Jackie Lee (behind me in picture below) asked me if  I had found some early bilberries!

Anyway, I had a horribly slow race, never able to open up and run, until the final descent from Caw where I at least I managed to blitz about 8 runners who had passed my pathetic shuffling hulk in the previous couple of miles.

I finished in 3:52 (a full 30 minutes slower than in 2007) in 41st place out of 185 starters.

Positives: a good training run in hot conditions, wearing a rucksack as we will in the 3PYR; I didn’t pack it in when I felt shite; I know what not to eat for breakfast.

Nasty nips

Until I got the email-of-doom from Damon (see below), the weekend had been going rather well. Yesterday we drove north in driving rain to Dolgellau for the massive Cader Idris race, which I’ve not done before.

Lots of familiar faces, and a great atmosphere in the town, and some quality browsing in shops that have held the same stock since the 1950s. We actually bought a plastic ice tray that was “Made in England”!

I did OK in the race, climbing steadily into the clag, knowing there was one veteran just ahead of me. After turning at the summit though I stupidly tried to find the “canny shortcut”, ended up in a boulder field for ages, then stumbled back to the main path losing quite a bit of time. This let two youngsters catch up, though I ripped something back taking the direct plunge instead of the zigzag path (those who have raced Cader will know what I mean) but one of them got me again on the steep slippy bit just before the road. I caught the other veteran in the woods just before inhaling a massive fly, which had me coughing as if to die for several minutes. Good run in on the road, 12th overall, 1st veteran, in 1:36. The prize was a pretty mingey £10 prize all things considered, now in the 3PYR charity pot. Andrew Davies won it in 1:28, Martin Shaw in 4th.

Here’s me pulling a bizarre face descending the Pony Path (which at high speed in wet conditions is frankly terrifying)…

It must have been in the last couple of miles that my nipples started bleeding properly, and rather than making all the girls swoon by showing pictures of the offending articles, here’s a shot of my blooded race number…

This morning Naomi took me up to Storey Arms to hook up with Patrick Wooddisse, who had set off on a South Wales Traverse at 3am. This is a 72 mile epic over all the 2000ft summits of South Wales, similar to a Bob Graham round. We had a lovely run in improving weather over the central Beacons, then hooked up with Helen Fines for the haul up to Cefn yr Ystrad and down to Pyrgad. On the road section I went ahead to line up a pint at the Red Lion (orange juice and lemonade, shame) – much needed as Patrick had then been running for eleven hours and was feeling a little peeky. He set off again looking strong, and I’ve just heard (21:00) they are at Lord Hereford’s Knob so there’s no doubt he’ll finish at Llanthony in a couple of hours, and might even catch last orders. Respect, Patrick well done.

Here’s Patrick flying the Beacons…

Later… got a text at around 22:05 from Helen: "Oh God he keeps chucking up". She didn’t specify whether they were already in the pub, but my guess was they were not!

One down?

While running over the Beacons this morning I was wondering how Damon got on in his big bike ride, whether the ribs & neck were recovering, or whether (as I feared) they would make life hard . On my return, I found the email I was dreading…

“My rib, six days after my fall, is more painful now than it has been all week. I embarked on an 80-mile bike-ride with a couple of plodders yesterday, managed ten painful miles then bailed out, and had to resort to calling Anna to come and collect me a few miles from home. I couldn’t get into a normal riding position, pull on the handlebars to climb hills or, in fact, tackle anything that required deep breathing without pretty bad discomfort. I can’t run a step without grunting, and can’t get dressed without swearing. My assurances that the rib was bruised rather than broken now seem a bit on the optimistic side (although the pain is centred about 6 inches from the point of impact, albeit on the same rib). From past experience I know that the pain will stick around for about three weeks, which by coincidence takes us to the start of the 3PYR. What this means is that I may be in a fit state to toe the start line, but that I’ll have done nothing for a month. How the injury would respond to humungously long runs on rough ground with a hefty pack is quite another matter.
The upshot is that you either need to find a replacement runner a very short notice, or to resign yourselves to having a cripple on board, which may very well necessitate some heroics from the crew when I get back from Snowdon hours later that predicted in a gibbering heap. Or, it might  be OK.  I guess the way to proceed is for a replacement to be sought, on the understanding that if none can be found, I pitch up and give it a crack.
I can’t express how pissed off I am about this, so I’m not going to try.There seems to be some wee bastard somewhere conspiring against my ever doing a big event again. I’ve finally managed to get past the hopeless susceptibility to chest infections that has scuppered so many races in the last couple of years (high-dose VIT C has done the trick, and I’ve been in good fettle for months now),  I had some miles in the legs, with a final push planned and was flying on the bike, when this happens. Really not very excited at all. I also feel extremely shite at letting you all down so close to the event. I know its a massive commitment of time, effort and money, and that the boat has a chance to do well, and I have nothing to offer except, "sorry!"”.

I’m looking for a replacement… anyone out there?

Another intimidating post

Felt a little tired after the weekend’s exertions, so only managed 24 miles before breakfast this morning. Took in a few minor peaks, but only about 9000 feet of ascent overall. My backpack was chafing a bit after a couple of hours, so I had to jettison 12 of the bricks. Finished fresh as a daisy in 2 hours 53, tucked into a pile of eggs and b, then cycled to work.

Good to see Damon’s mastered two more useful sports this weekend – rounders and archery; both could prove useful in the 3PYR. I’ve got a “build your own 1:1 scale mini-sub” kit from Japan, claiming to be ideal for stealth attacks on yachts at their moorings.

And I’m very pleased to report that James has at last been practising sailing that thing, and has given me these calculations of best likely times (i.e. minimum time we will have to eat cake and rub each other up/down between runs):

Barmouth – Caernarfon -  56 nM  (9.5 hours)
Carnarfon – Whitehaven (via Menai) – 92 nM (15.5 hours)
Carnarfon – Whitehaven (round Anglesey) – 112 nM (18.5 hours)
Whitehaven to Fort William (via Sound of Luing) – 198 nM (33 hours)

Hopefully James will add some yacht-shots soon… hint hint.

Oh crap – just got text from Damon, who’s taken a bad fall training on the hills and busted up a knee and ribs.

Two Englishman, a Scotsman and a Greek ran up a hill…

That’ll be the East Wales team for the UK Inter-Counties Fell Running Championships. A couple of weeks ago we had snow on the hills in South Wales… today 27 degrees, so I was feeling quite apprehensive about this 9 mile race at Lletty in the Clwydian Hills. I gave Martin a lift up from Builth, and he was a bit like one of those satnavs that is determined to take the shortest route no matter what; we ended up on precipitous lanes about 6 inches narrower than the car, asking squinty-eyed farmers where we were, but got there in the end.

The inter-counties is the most competitive race in the calendar, and the start line was a who’s who of northern rock’ard fell runners. Plus teams from lots of counties like Leicestershire and Essex who are rather less renowned for their mastery of the lumpy stuff, expressing some consternation that the start was up a 30 degree slope. 

I knew this race was going to be all about pace judgment and the heat, and so it  turned out with many runners failing to finish. 4 x 200 metre climbs, with fast running descents between. I took it steady, enjoying the awesome sight of a hundred runners stretching away in front up the hillfort climb, and another couple of hundred behind. Dick Finch was a gallant team manager, providing drinks and encouragement in the mid section. Then I gradually pulled through the field as many fell to bits around me, and by the last climb I’d caught team mate Rob Gordon (which has never happened before – check out the lean guy far left in the photo below and you’ll see why!) though I was beginning to feel a little dizzy. Here’s a photo from Ali Tye of me (white hat) about to catch Rob (red hat) on the last climb… but on the final descent, Rob blitzed me, overtaking about 5 while I only passed two or three. Very good to finish.

 

I came 41st in 1 hour 27 minutes (and 4th over 40 veteran); Rob was 38th a few seconds in front; Martin had a great run in 25th (1:21:57), and Dmitri 67th in 1:33. The winner was Martin Cox (photo on right) in a truly incredible 1:11:34, over a minute ahead of Simon Bailey in 2nd. First lady was Vic Wilkinson, 4 places ahead of me. We don’t know where we came as a team yet, but well inside top 10 I think. The top prizes went to the usual Yorkshiremen, Cumbrians etc. Here’s the East Wales team (minus a couple of the girls, plus my prize beer for being old)…

Tomorrow I need to get out with a pack on in the heat for some 3PYR grinding, but I’m not sure my toes will be up to it – they are looking properly horrible this evening, making the children scream and run away.