Edge of cramp

It was a very close call.

I'm not a great hot weather runner and the heat today gave me a high salt loss through sweating. Which almost cost me dear - dear in terms of having to walk instead of run on account of cramp. Fortunately I just held it at bay but I had one or two twinges. The kind of twinges where you're mere milliseconds away from a full on cramp. But it was a good days training and I managed to surprise myself in how much of the ascent I was able to run. Run, that is, in the loosest sense of the word. There's many a soul who could actually walk faster than my up hill run but run I never-the-less did.

In all I covered 32km and 5,000 feet of ascent. That's roughly 500m more than the actually race as I started my watch/gps from the car park not the reservoir wall. And the best part? I actually beat my race time from two years ago! (That's the only time I've run it before). I was 17 minutes quicker today - just shows what a mare of a race I had back then.

Anyway, here's the route for those interested. And note there's a minute to be shaved off your time if you gamble and take the 'cut the corner' short cut on the ridge after Fan-y-Big (you don't actually go up Fan-y-Big in the race but it's the best point of reference I have).