South Wales Traverse

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South Wales Traverse

South Wales Traverse. 4th & 5th June 2004.

80(ish) miles. 27000ft ascent

Note: This report was written for Crispin's employer's website, hence the references unfamiliar to Westies.

Crispin told me some months ago about this hair-brained scheme, and immediately I was hooked. Back in the olden days when I was a fit young man (i.e. before I got married and went to seed) I used to do this sort of thing pretty regularly. I've never quite got used to the idea that anno domini and a severe reduction in training might have changed things a bit, and I shoe-horned myself (quivering - what a bloody lunatic driver that Tristan is!) from the back of the exeGesIS Mini Cooper full of anticipation and boyish optimism. It was 4:45 p.m. Nineteen hours later I staggered into Llantony Priory, my feet a pulpy mess, sank gratefully to the grass, cursed, whimpered, drank a pint of shandy (I am English afterall) and promptly fell asleep.

Up here in Scotland we tend to regard anywhere south of Manchester as tropical, and try to avoid southerly journeys in the summer months for fear of heat-exhaustion, beri-beri and those nasty intestinal parasites you get in hot countries. I was therefore looking forward to balmy weather and a pleasant nights running over soft grassy tops in bright moonlight. The reality was somewhat different.

Our first leg, from Albert's Wotnot to the Black Mountain Ridge was pretty straight-forward, and we trundled around in just a few seconds outside Crispin's estimate, (more about Crispin's bloody estimates later...) Here we handed over to the energetic Richard, and made our way down the track to his LandRover. Crispin asked if I'd ever driven one, and as I fancied a bash, I lied that I had. We met Richard at the end of his leg, which he'd knocked off almost 20 minutes quicker than scheduled, and waved Crispin's in-laws off on their trot to Fan Frynich, where we met them two-and-a-half hours later. During this time the clag had descended, darkness had fallen and visibility had dropped to a murky 30m or so. Congrats to them both for their flawless navigation in tricky conditions, and for their unexpectedly chirpy demeanour when they arrived. They too had knocked a few minutes off prediction. This happy trend was about to end abruptly.

Crispin led me off into the gloom on a leg that was scheduled to take 55 minutes, ending at the Storey Arms, where Crispin had earlier stashed a bag of goodies. Conditions were miserable and we immediately lost time on the climb to our first summit (can't remember the name, but probably safe to say it has about 13 consonants and one vowel), which we reached just after bedtime in strong wind and chilly rain. The effort of climbing on rough terrain had kept us warm, but without stopping briefly to don waterproofs we would have had a very unpleasant and possibly hazardously cold descent to the Storey Arms. Crispin's food drop (including luke-warm coffee) was still there, but we had already dropped 13 minutes.

We set off again, replenished by the goody-bag, and started on the climb to the Brecon Beacons. Almost immediately I was afflicted by a weird blood-sugar wobble which rendered me dizzy and disorientated for about ten minutes before things stabilised. This happened every time I took on food for the remainder of the run. I'm no stranger to eating on the run, being both a veteran of several ultra-long events and a greedy bastard, and I'm at a loss as to why I struggled with eating on this one. Out of practice, I guess. We seemed to be making pretty good progress and were moving pretty strongly, but navigating was slowed drastically by the lack of visibility, and by the time we reached Abercynafon we had lost a further 16 minutes. I was now getting pretty comprehensively shagged out, having managed only one run longer than an hour since about 1847, and was very much looking forward to the warm embrace (figuratively speaking) of Lucie and Chris and the shelter of their campervan. A change of socks, a chat and a strange fusion of soups expertly blended by Crispin took longer than planned and we set off a further 10 minutes adrift of prediction, now something like half-an-hour behind.

It was now starting to get light, thank God, and by the time we had climbed to the huge quarries at the top of our next big climb, navigation had ceased to be such a hindrance. We'd now been running all night, through horrible weather and truly monstrous underfoot peat-hags, rocks and bogs, and I was nigh-on jiggered. It was a nine-mile leg with a reasonable amount of climb, and the final couple of miles across a nasty traverse that tortured my ankles and a jarring descent on the road made me almost certain I was going to chunder at the feet of the waiting Mike and Sally. I managed to hold onto my breakfast by force of will and slumped into the car. Crispin covered my naked torso with a jaggy old horse blanket covered in dog-hairs, then spilt our second breakfast (soup again!) over the road, where it was eagerly snapped up by Jon's dogs.

I'd expected a nice long rest here, and possibly even 40 winks, but Jon's hasty progress, reports coming from base-camp that Tony and Karen were moving over the hill like a couple of sheep-dogs on speed and the long walk into our next hand-over robbed me of this and we drove then plodded to the ridge cairn at Pen Trumau. The sun was up, the temperature was climbing steadily and I was just about as tired as a boy can be. Fortunately Tony and Karen's rapier progress had slowed a bit, and I was able to lie in the sun for ten minutes and rest my weary limbs. Tony appeared, smiling like a toothy maniac and jabbering excitedly (is he always like that?!) with Karen a couple of minutes behind. The rest had done wonders and I skipped like a morris dancer (but smellier) up to the summit of the next unpronounceable hill with fresh vigour. The sapping boggy peat hags off the top soon brought me back to reality, and rough descent through felled forest, nettles, jaggy bushes, alleviated briefly by a lovely restorative stream was the stuff of nightmares. We handed on once again to the ever-cheerful Richard (although he'd had a night's sleep, the lucky git!)

Here the extent of my demise became apparent to all. I carefully transferred warm clothes, dry shoes and my wallet into a rucksack to carry to the journey's end at Llantony, then merrily picked up the bag I had just emptied, strapped it to my back and trundled off. This was Richard's leg, and Crispin and I were to accompany him to the ridge line then point him north to Gospel Pass and walk out to Llantony. The climb to the ridge was a drag and I trudged up some way behind the others. Richard stormed off and Crispin and I turned right, our duty done, with just a short downhill stroll to Llantony. Or so we thought...

I'd mentioned to Crispin earlier in the day that he was existing almost entirely on adrenalin, and that he'd crash the minute the run was finished. As it happened, he didn't last quite that long. Within minutes of separating from Richard he'd slowed to a dawdle, muttering profanities and whimpering at the slightest undulation. Somewhere in a previous life we'd speculated that when we reached the Priory we might jog up onto Offa's Dyke to meet Tristan, check that he wasn't sitting with his pals sharing a spliff and a can of Special Brew and chivvy him along. This notion was summarily discarded, and we phoned Mike and Sally and gave them the job instead.

And that was the nineteen hours. As you all know, Tristan continued the sprightly pace set by the rest of the second-day walkers and runners and brought the baton home with 90 minutes to spare. I've just looked through the leg times and predictions and noticed that Crispin and I were the only ones to lose any time, and that we did it on all but one of our legs. What a miserable performance. I'm sorry to say that this was entirely my doing. My redoubtable partner's navigation in awful conditions was absolutely flawless and with a few brief exceptions, his progress would have been swifter had I not been there. Had he not been there, I would still be stumbling around looking for Abercynafon through a hypoglycaemic haze.