Saturday, May 07, 2016

Think I Might Have Caught The Sun...

It didn't look like I would when I set out from Talybont reservoir at about half past ten into the drizzle. It looked ominously grey with the tops shrouded in mist. I made my mind up to run the anti-clockwise version but missed out the crappy road bit at the start. Other than that it was the full Brecon Beacon's fell race route. I even added the small summit of Twyn Du rather than take the trod around.

Forty five minutes in I was starting to slowly broil but luckily the drizzle finally eased and I could take my waterproof off. It didn't rain again so there wasn't all the faffing of on, off, on, off this week.

I took things steady as I knew I had a long way to go. I felt pretty good up to Cribyn, Pen y Fan, Corn Du, the ridge run and the forest track but began to fade into the second to last climb, up to Pant y Creigiau.

I struggled across the ridge but kept pushing. To be fair, it was mainly a 'fueling' issue... I haven't quite got into the routine of fueling during the run. It's only these last few runs where I've needed to. One gel and and energy drink is probably quite a bit light for a 20 miler mountain run.

By the time I got to Tor y Foel the sun was shining bright but my calfs were feeling it and I was on the edge of cramp. I kept going at it as hard as I could - which was, in all honesty, a bit pitiful by then. As my wise Nepalese Guru would say, even when you're knackered you've got to keep pushing.

The descent back to the reservoir wasn't as quick as it should have been, mainly to stave off full blown cramp. I finished the 31.1k training run with 1500m ascent in 3:56. I was aiming for four hours so I'll take it.

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