Duncan, Ruby and I went camping this weekend near Coed Y Brenin in Wales. We arrived on Friday night after being stuck in traffic for over three hours to pouring rain so it was lovely to be able to just hop into the back of the van and not have to put a tent up.
On Saturday, we headed over to Rhyd Ddu to watch some of the Snowdonia Marathon. I knew that John Swift was taking part in this so thought it would be nice to show up unannounced to give him a cheer a couple of miles after the half way point. He looked fresh as a daisy when he ran past us. After watching a few other runners come through and seeing the odd familiar face from local running clubs, we decided to head to the finish line in Llanberis. We drove against the flow of runners and a couple of miles down the road we noticed Ed Swift coming up the hill. I hadn’t known that he was running too so felt awful for not waiting around to give him a cheer. When we arrived at the finish, John had not long since crossed the line and was heading back to his car to get changed. We decided to wait for Ed to finish so went and stood about 100 metres from the finish line to cheer everyone on. I don’t know why, but watching people finish at events like this makes me get a little emotional sometimes. I think that it is seeing a lot of the runners with that look of elation on their face that they have achieved something so fantastic. I was probably a bit more emotional than usual this time too, given my failed marathon attempt a couple of weeks ago. Ed came round the corner and we gave him a huge cheer as he ran along the finishing straight. We the walked with Ed and bumped back into John and, after a brief natter, went our separate ways. Duncan took a couple of photos of John and Ed which can be found on this linkhttp://wfdbwgua.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/snowdonia-marathon-24th-october-2015.html?m=1
On the Sunday, we went to the trail centre at Coed Y Brenin. As well as having mountain bike trails here, they also have new running trails at distances of 2.5 miles, 5.2 miles, 8.5 miles and 13.2 miles. I couldn’t decide which route to do and I’m afraid to say I opted for the 5.2 mile route as I was feeling quite tired. I’m glad I did though because I felt terrible! The first mile felt OK which is odd because it was all climb and I was really pleased with how well I was doing. At the top of the climb, I paused for a second but then couldn’t seem to get going again after that and was looking forward to getting to the end of the route.
Once I returned, to the van where Duncan was sitting drinking a brew having just finished his bacon butty, my brother turned up to meet Duncan as they were going onto the mountain bike trails. It was then my turn for a bacon butty and a brew. After my refreshments, I took Ruby on a couple of the walking trails where she decided to attack what turned out to be a wooden deer! She’s just not very bright.
Total distance – 5.3 miles (extra bit on as I started the trail from the van, not from the trail start)
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