Llanbedr to Blaenavon

Welsh championship, 14 miles, 4500 foot ascent, clear blue skies but bollock-freezing wind, from sleepy Llanbedr, over Crug Mawr, off the summit in the wrong direction sod it, back up over the ridge to rejoin 5 places down, then over Sugarloaf, then luscious long descent back down to 100ft running through Abergavenny town nasty roads, then up nearly 1700ft of steep cramp steep bugger this hurts ascent onto Blorringe (NB useful for aspiring poets, this being the only word to rhyme with orange) then down feeling brill and fast, passing three, until suddenly completely lost, join main road, into Blaenavon (World Heritage Site for unique grimness, aka "The Big Pit", asking directions and getting pissed off, then joy as round the corner to see Naomi and kids and crowd looking expectantly in the opposite direction at another runner. Sprint up hill to beat him but lost 2 places anyway, finish, drink, chips, cramp, more chips, more cramp. Winner - Tim Davies (?Mercia FR, very young, runs like Damon), Me 7th. Great race - the ascent of Blorringe is exceedingly worse than Trahenna, and gave me cramp in quads, calves, shins and feet all at the same time. Others had it worse... I passed a guy just lying on the slope, his face a greenish grey, who responded to my cheery greeting with a simple "my legs have stopped working, I can't go on". So I called him a big welsh fairy and hobbled away as fast as I could...

Posted by Crispin Flower on Wed 30 Nov -0001 | comments are closed

Category races