Not in the army now

whoa, whoa, not in the army, now [one for the Status Quo fans]. I love burning off the Army. They were out in force - and with guns. No fear. I burnt them. That's twice in two days because they were out yesterday over by Fan-y-Big as well.

I headed over to the Storey Arms today for a recce of a small section of the South Wales Traverse. Visibility was brilliant so it was a great day to take a good look around from the tops of various summits and get a feel for the area. I've not really ever been on the mountains east of Storey Arms so today's weather could not have been better - and I didn't even have to slip Michael Fish a bung.

After 33 miles Wednesday, 6 on Thursday and two hard races Yesterday and Saturday I was expecting to struggle. I took full kit just in case. Sun blocked up and headed out. I went straight up Fan Fawr - puffing somewhat. Then ran south east on a lovely steady descent - except for the boggy, reedy bits which were hard going, but mercifully short. From the bottom river crossing there was a short section through some woods before heading up to Fan Nedd. That climb was a bastard for most of the way. No real path to speak of just the occasional sheep trod but plenty of wet, boggy bits and knee high tussocks. It seemed to take ages but I pushed the pace as best I could.

Once at the trig I headed straight down into the valley westwards. Again it was too tussocky to really go flat out but it was a quickish descent never the less. Back across the river and then a slow, cross county ascent to Fan Llia before finally getting some good running in on the path around to Fan Frynych. It was here I burnt all the soldiers off - on the up as well as the down - nice.

Then from Frynych it was straight cross country and more tussocks before the sharp ascent of Fan Fawr. From there it was just a few minutes back down to the car.

In all I ran just under 16 miles with 4,300 feet of ascent on fairly rough terrain. It took a pleasingly short 3 hours 23 minutes. I was expecting it to take longer on two counts; that of the roughness and the tiredness of me. I reckon tomorrow's run in the Black Mountains above Abergavenny might be a struggle...

Today's route;