Saturday 25 February 2012

Glasbury to Builth Wells 35 Mile Loop

The Wye One Way 50 mile ultra marathon is ominously close, so yesterday I jumped in the van at 6:30am and headed north to Glasbury on Wye to check out the last section of the course. It's highly likely that it will be dark when I get to this stage on the day of the event, so I wanted to be familiar with it.

The countryside is beautiful in this part of mid Wales. Driving north, you leave behind the higher hills and enter into the stunning river valley. The Wye One Way route follows the Wye Valley Walk path for the most part, and includes flat sections alongside the river, and plenty of ups and downs along broad grassy bridleways on the hillsides, clocking up a significant 7648ft of ascent. My run yesterday included the last 16ish miles of this route.




The bridge I was supposed to cross at Llanstephan was closed to cars and pedestrians due to roadworks, so I diverted up onto the hillside and rejoined the intended route just above Erwood Bridge.

http://youtu.be/AP8feLlThMo



I dropped into Builth Wells and realised how hungry I was! I've been packing just liquid and Soreen for my recent runs of up to 30ish miles, but having clocked 18 miles, eaten 2 slices of malt loaf, with just 2 slices left, it was apparent that I've become complacent about my food requirements. Builth delivered, and 2 cheese and onion pasties were bought, one was consumed and the other saved for later - just in case.

A quick rejig of gear, and I was back on the trail, retracing my steps back to the van.

The last section of the route, together with the diversion caused by the closed bridge, involved a lot of running of tarmac roads, and my knees and ankles were screaming by the end of the run, so much so, I conceded, and walked the whole of the last 2 miles (the mental demons were also at work by this point).

Lessons....

1. Food - need more than 4 slices of malt loaf if going over 30 miles!
2. Road running - haven't run on roads for months, so I need to fit some into my training to toughen up my joints
3. Carry ibuprofen

Distance covered: 34.6 miles
Elevation: 3422ft
Time: 8.5 hours












Monday 20 February 2012

UTLD Lakeland 100 Fly through

UPDATED:   Full L100 route now posted

Bought my Dad a Memory Map GPS unit for his birthday and in setting it up I got to play with the mapping software for the PC.

Have a look at the first 50 miles of the UTLD Lakeland 100 route in glorious OS 3D - cover 50 miles in just 13ish minutes!

Lakeland 50 route to follow when I have another spare 2 days to waste playing on my laptop :0)

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3141BB03DC9AA64F


Saturday 11 February 2012

Western Loop

I had a great run last Friday heading west from the A470 to the quieter tops north of Ystradfellte.





I headed off early and parked the van at the Garwnant Visitors centre - 7:30 and the temperature gauge was reading -8.5C.



I warmed up with a loop around the forest and then headed over open moorland toward Ystradfellte. The snow was knee deep in parts and I was reliant on the animal tracks to get me across this section safely. If the ground hadn't been frozen solid, it would have been a miserable plod through deep bog, but it was a frozen morning and so the going was much easier.










The village of Ystradfellte is very pretty, tucked away between hills, and if it wasn't for the other 20 miles ahead of me and the limited daylight, I would love to have tried out the pub there and taken a detour to view the waterfalls. But time was short so I plodded on towards Fan Llia and onto the ridgeway that would deliver me back on to the Taff Trail near Storey Arms. Whilst on top I was joined by a couple of fighter jets who passed over me twice to say hello - the only contact I'd have all day.

The snow was knee deep on top and had drifted in places so the going was slower than I'd hoped. My Inov8s were frozen solid and the feed pipe from my water bladder was also rendered useless having frozen within half hour of setting off. At one point I thought the wire from my earphones had somehow become tangled in my hair, but realised that my hair had frozen and I had 3 icicles attached to my locks!











27 deserted miles covered comfortably within daylight hours, around an area that is stunningly beautiful particularly with a covering of snow, and a route that introduced me to new areas and tracks.