Pen-y-Fan…A Mini Epic

Posted on August 28, 2014 by James Clay

I love a good day in the mountains…but it turns out I might love a bad day even more!

On Tuesday we (Claire and I, an old friend from Essex where they don’t have mountains, so she came west for a few days) headed over to the Brecon Beacons for what should have been a relatively simple day out on the mountain. The route I’d planned was a quite demanding ascent up to an exposed (but wide and safe) ridgeline, with a short scramble to the summit of Pen-y-fan, the highest point in the Beacons.

Checking and double checking the route

Checking and double checking the route

The weather wasn’t great on the drive in to Wales, we both had enough kit to tackle a bit of rain without worrying but thankfully the walk started dry. We set off at a fair pace, climbing fast but soon walking in to the cloud cover, and losing all visibility. At one point Claire disappeared 20 feet ahead of me, the chances of admiring the views were nil!

Claire walks up in to the murky gloom.

Claire walks up in to the murky gloom.

I knew when we crested the ridge we were going to be exposed to some harsh conditions but I wasn’t expecting quite the wind we got!

We were battered all the way up to the summit. I’m considerably heavier than Claire and there were points when I was nearly blown over, so she did exceptionally well to still be on the mountain when we got to the top! Thankfully, the actual summit was a haven of calm as we were sheltered from the wind. Perfect lunch spot, and any crumbs were picked off by a brave little bird and even braver little mouse that were running around scavenging. Knowing what we were walking back down in to I could have sat up their watching the wildlife for hours (there were certainly no views to be enjoyed!) but after a brief stop we set off for the return leg, heading over Corn Du and virtually straight off the side on a near vertical drop down to the adjacent ridge.

Claire points out the view from the summit.

Claire points out the view from the summit.

At this point the weather took a turn for the worse! The wind had been almost comical in the way it threw us around, but when it was driving stinging rain sideways it wasn’t quite so funny! Somehow though we laughed our way through it and as soon as the opportunity arose to drop down off the ridge I took it. (never underestimate the value of navigation, it’s not just for getting home,  but getting home the best way and often not the way you planned!) Almost as soon as we lost height the rain eased and the wind disappeared, leaving us with a nice valley walk out alongside a rushing stream and Claire’s favourite outdoor feature, trees. (weirdo)

Somewhere up there was a mountain and a hell of a lot of wind!

Somewhere up there was a mountain and a hell of a lot of wind!

So only a short walk (7 miles) and done at a reasonable trot (under 4 hours) but thanks to the good old Welsh weather it was made quite an adventure!

Are you a mountain fan? Got a favourite? Any must do routes you can recommend?

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@Chelt52 – Promoting Running To The Cheltenham Masses

Posted on August 25, 2014 by James Clay

The @Chelt52 Twitter project is the brainchild of Sophie and Liam, it is a chance for 52 Cheltonian organisations or individuals to take over a Twitter account and promote different aspects of Cheltenham life to nearly 7,000 new followers.

chelt52

I’ve already had a week in a professional capacity, talking about animal welfare and rescue in the town, and it was a fantastic opportunity to engage with a whole new audience. I’m now really excited to be taking over the account from a personal perspective in the week leading up to the Cheltenham Half Marathon (31/08-7/09)

pump

My aim is to promote running in the town, by showcasing the clubs, routes, races and retailers that make Cheltenham such a great place to run. I’ll also be sharing the best of Twitter and the products and companies I can recommend from personal experience. I’ll be calling for interaction from local runners to share their experiences, tweeting from training sessions and races through the week and finally live tweeting the Cheltenham Half!

There is plenty of opportunity to be involved or to get a mention during the week. If any clubs want to be featured or brands want to run a competition then you just need to let me know! I’ll be supporting each day’s tweets with a daily blog post to recap everything that’s been shared, so there’s plenty of room for everyone!

I’m really looking forward to a week of running chat, I hope you follow @Chelt52 for the week and get involved, it would be great to have you along.

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Thunder Run 24 – All In!

Posted on August 24, 2014 by James Clay

In 2010 I heard about a 24 hour running race, similar to the Mountain Mayhem biking events I’d done before. A solo or team race over a 10km trail course, putting in as many laps as possible in a day. Being new to running and struggling my way through 3 miles at the time, I dismissed it as something meant for other people, fitter people…but I never forgot what I’d read.

Fast forward to 2014, and with a couple of marathons under my belt and a new raft of friends who loved running and challenging themselves as much as me, that 24 hour race popped up on my Facebook page and this time I felt ready for it.

And so it was that in July I had a team entered in my first Adidas Thunder Run 24 – the Glastonbury of running!

tr24

It would be easy, if terribly long winded, to write up the whole 24 hours (there are many that have and described the undulating, twisting, technical course in minute detail…should you want that sort of thing) but instead let’s stick to the highlights shall we?

  • Friday, setting up camp in an already packed field and learning my way around the site. The set up is brilliant, the camping is right on the course and at least 2km of the route is flanked by cheering/heckling/water pistol wielding support which is fantastic. I also bumped in to friend, trainer and Twitter motivator Stuart Amory, always good to see him at events, there’s not many out there more supportive than Stu!
  • Saturday and the rest of the team arrive. The team dynamic of TR24 is possibly my favourite thing, working with a bunch of mates to achieve something is one of life’s little joys. What was even nicer for me is that the 5 lads I ran with didn’t all know each other before we started. Some had met, some hadn’t, but within minutes of arriving it was clear we had a great team ethic and were in for 24 hours of “cracking bantz”.
Foz, Brycey and Bruv bond over a selfie while I'm out putting in the opening lap.

Foz, Brycey and Bruv bond over a selfie while I’m out putting in the opening lap.

  • The race begins and I’m out on first lap. The camaraderie was amazing, through all four of my laps I was chatting to people and when I was struggling the next runner to pass me always had an encouraging word so I made sure to do the same. I got taken out by a girl bouncing off a tree that was strategically placed in the middle of the course. At midnight I was motivated for a mile or two by a flashing banana who ran with me and spurred me on. I made sure to acknowledge every single nutter who was soloing the event and attempting to keep going for the whole 24 hours, those folk are heroes, every one. The course was never boring anyway, I’d happily have that as a weekly 10k route, but add the people and the TR24 atmosphere and it was my favourite running in a long long time.
  • Overnight no one missed a change over. There’s nothing worse than coming in off your lap and finding no one waiting for you. We had a system that worked and 6 guys committed to each other, the support was fantastic.
  • Sunday, and with the clock ticking down we finished our 24th lap. Given that we had turned up prepared to do 3 laps each as a team of 8, dropping to 6 and raising the bar to 4 laps a man was a challenge, but there was never a moment of hesitation from anyone that that is exactly what we would do!
  • Finishing 84th out of 227 teams was better than I think anyone expected, and knowing we had time to go out for a 25th lap if anyone had fancied it and could have got top 80. We’re definitely reassessing our goals for next year…yep, we’re definitely going back!

tr24 team

It wasn’t all perfect, there were three small things that took the shine off the event just ever so slightly…

  • The catering tent was the worst organised and least hygienic event catering I’ve seen in a long time, to the point that we rejected eating there after watching the same people handling cash, then food with bare hands and seeming entirely clueless about what they were supposed to be doing. I’m sure no one got poisoned that weekend, but with a catering manager in the team he wasn’t going to eat any shit in a tray! Luckily Brycey came through with a fine array of bbq meat to see us through!
Catering, Bryce style.

Catering, Bryce style.

  • The marshals were, for the most part, absent. From my second lap through three and four I saw only 1 marshal actually looking at the course. At other marshal points the only sign they were there was a faint hue of hi-vis from a tent or car, and a vast number of marshals actually sat with their backs to the course! I know it’s hard to be motivational and supportive for 24 hours (if that’s how long they were out there) but to not even be near the course? I’m not sure what job they were doing but it wasn’t looking out for participant welfare!
  • Finally, Adidas. Brilliant event sponsors, great t-shirts, and brilliant service from the guys dishing them out, but… They had boards around the course, a great chance to support the runners and engage with their audience. Instead they were useless facts about the rubber they use for their soles and how light their running spikes are. Pretty sure at 4am no one cared about that, and a “you’re ace” would have done a lot more to engender affection and loyalty for the brand. Had been looking forward to their motivational messages, but not a single one in 10km!
None of this in 2014...just 10km of crappy adverts!

None of this in 2014…just 10km of crappy adverts! (photo from last year, so they got it right then!)

Those little gripes aside, this was one of the best races, and weekend events, I’ve been to. Can’t wait to get back next year with the guys and launch our assault on the top 50!

Things we'll do better in 2015...including training and not forgetting my head torch!

Things we’ll do better in 2015…including training and not forgetting my head torch!

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How NOT To Do A Microadventure

Posted on June 6, 2014 by James Clay

The clue is in the name…

For the uninitiated, a microadventure is the brainchild of Alistair Humphreys, and involves getting away from it all and sleeping out under the stars. The idea is that you can fit an adventure in the 5-9, the hours you aren’t working midweek. All the equipment you need is a sleeping bag, bivi bag (waterproof cover) and sleep mat. It is simplicity itself, and you need go no further than your nearest hill for a night of relaxation among the elements.

So when a friend invited me to join him for a first microadventure I didn’t hesitate. The plan was simple enough, if not strictly as Alistair recommends. Walk the 55 miles of the Wysis Way over a weekend stopping up a hill for a night out, sleeping al fresco. So I packed a bag, grabbed some snacks, a guide book and hit the road.

It started well enough...with Karl pointing the way...

It started well enough…with Karl pointing the way…

And that’s pretty much where it started to go wrong.

The Wysis Way is a long distance path linking the rivers Wye in Monmouth and Isis (the ancient name for the Thames) at it’s source near Kemble, Gloucestershire. What this means is it doesn’t actually follow anything of interest or handrail any obvious landmarks or link castles, offer continually spectacular views, have an exciting history or anything else entertaining. We were only to learn this after the first few miles, but what we learned from the start is that the Wysis Way is muddy. Very, very muddy. In fact it would give Mudrunner nightmares and make Tough Mudder leave a different kind of brown stain. Parts of the route had even been used for the legendary (locally anyway) May Hill Massacre, a race that prides itself on the amount of mud it offers. In fact, the only place the path wasn’t muddy was when it became a stream, a 12″ deep, fast flowing stream with banks of nettle and thorn that offered no alternative.

So that’s a dull walk along a muddy path, it doesn’t get worse than that…does it?

Well yes, when the path is so badly signposted that navigation is a necessity every 200 yards it can start to become a little tiresome. Even the signs we did find had a tendency to be either pointing the wrong way (resulting in a comedy “get orf me land” moment) or not even attached to the floor! It was only through a combination of guide book, OS map and navigation app that we were able to locate the path at all on a number of occasions (and do our best to correct the signage!).

"Which way do you want this arrow to point?" isn't what you want to hear, and a stream isn't what you want to see!

“Which way do you want this arrow to point?” isn’t what you want to hear, and a stream isn’t what you want to see!

I should point out here that it is only with hindsight I can see how bad this trail was for walking (and how poorly prepared we were for its demands) because at the time I was thoroughly enjoying myself! Slipping all over the place, wading through streams, confidently naming the different trees (turns out if you say “sycamore” confidently enough no one is going to argue with you, no matter how poor your knowledge of flora!) and all with great company putting the world to rights and planning our future careers as charity superheroes .

But the upshot of all this adversity was that as the shadows lengthened and the day left us we’d covered around two thirds of the distance planned…and then the cows happened.

I’ve shared fields with cows before, never bothered me. I’ve confidently stridden through the herd or done that thing where you get big (arms out, waving a jacket) and shout nonsense to drive the cattle away. Unfortunately the herd we encountered were very young, and hadn’t quite learned the rules yet. They seemed to think it was acceptable to chase us across a field, and although they stopped when I shouted at them thought it was good fun to start again the second I turned my back to head for the stile. They were smart too, possibly having read Sun Tzu’s The Art Of War. They definitely understood the tactics of a pincer movement and outflanking the opposition. Result? Karl and I sprinting the last 40 metres and diving head first over a barbwire fence on the wrong edge of the field and now the wrong side of a stream with an extra mile of walking across fields to find a crossing.

Much like the cows the day had got behind us and we had an hour of daylight left by now. Having only covered 25 of the planned 33 miles we were still an hour from the nearest pub serving food, which would leave us almost in Gloucester city centre and not on the hills beyond as we’d planned. We were tired, sore, wet…and five minutes from where we’d left the car.

So our first attempt at a microadventure had become a macroadventure, and finished with a lovely carvery (well we were near the pub!) and a drive home. I was soon home, showered and in bed, reflecting on our day, and decided that even if we’d cocked up magnificently it had been magnificent and I soon drifted in to a deep, contented, unexpectedly comfortable sleep…

Cow bastards, disappointing stats and a consoling pint, not how the day was supposed to end!

Cow bastards, disappointing stats and a consoling pint, not how the day was supposed to end!

I’ve just ordered Al Humphrey’s book “Microadventures” in an effort to avoid making the same mistakes again, and we have already agreed the location of our next attempt at microadventuring.

 

 

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Reasons To Love My Running Club #153: Handicap Race Series

Posted on May 30, 2014 by James Clay

My club, Almost Athletes, have an annual handicap race series which I’ve entered for the first time this year…and I wish I’d done it ages ago!

The premise is quite simple, but wildly complicated at the same time…

The simple: Each participant submits a recent race time (over any distance) and then turns up on the middle Monday of each month ready to run the 3 lap/4.4 mile course as fast as they possibly can.

The complicated: Those race times are subjected to some hardcore algebra (obviously you may find it easy, but [T2 = T1 x (D2/D1)1.06] confuses the hell out of me!) and the result is a reasonably accurate predicted race time for the 7.2km course. These are then ordered, and the difference in seconds calculated ready for race day.

The result should be that after a staggered start, if everyone runs to their race time potential, there will be a blanket finish as everyone crosses the line together irrespective of how fast they are.

So when we all lined up for race #1 in the series I was due to start 7th, 4:48 behind the slowest runner and some 13 minutes ahead of the quickest! Although I started alone, I had my closest leader in my sights and knew the next runner would be starting with me in theirs. I’ve run many a race over the years, scored a few PBs now and then, but I can honestly say I have never run so hard from the start before…flat out on the “b” of bang!

I started reeling in the guys in front of me, quicker than I’d expected too. It’s amazing how motivating it is having your prey in your sights and knowing that, statistically, you should catch them. Over the course of the first 3 miles I overtook 5 of the 6 that started ahead of me and suddenly I was in second place. Second place in a race. Me. In second place.

And then in the last mile the statistics caught up with me, as the faster runners started to catch me. They didn’t just catch me, they went past me, fast. I hadn’t really considered it before but when the quick guys went ahead they really went ahead, disappearing in to the distance, and that was a quite demoralising moment. But as I closed in on the finish I realised there could only be 5 people ahead of me, and over a four race series with points available each race, I still had something to fight for.

So I dug in, and with the exception of being beaten in a sprint finish (by someone who has since run a 3:38 marathon!) I held on and finished in 7th place! I’ve never finished a race that high, I don’t think I’ve ever finished that high in my age group, not even if there were only 8 men running!

So I’m quite happy with that, in fact more than quite. Of course, times will be adjusted now ahead of the next race, so I will have more of a handicap, but by finishing outside the top 5 I won’t receive a time penalty which is nice!

Next race on June 16th…I’ve got lots of hard work to do in the next two weeks if I’m going to be competitive again…best get started.

Details on the club handicap race can be found here, should you be interested in arranging one for your club.

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