Training Log Archive: Mark3

Very useful Paddy Buckley recce with Jake, of the first leg I ever did which at the time scared me off an attempt.
This time we were nearly half an hour faster despite not pushing the pace, which is really encouraging. Feeling pretty confident about it now.

Better line across the Bryn Banog bog than last time. Stayed right after leaving the forest and then passed to the right of the house, then pretty much straight to wall junction from there. After this the spur to the left looked slightly drier but there's not a lot in it. In general this wasn't even unpleasant - maybe it's just worse later in the year with more vegetation.

Straight onto the trod from the summit of BB, but then remember to turn left when it does! Then took the right branch up Moel Hebog this time, which is better as expected.

Just before the MYO col, cross to left of wall to avoid the cliff. Can cross right again at stile at col.

Y Gyrn, left of wall for the first bit, then crossing to right at end of grass, looks optimum. We did right all the way up which was fine, especially near the top where it's significantly better. Then post summit, stay on trod until end of ridge then go sharp left, much easier way down if slightly further.

On MDYC ridge, cross to left as soon as this is actually possible - avoids scree section.

Following Y Garn, right immediately after stile to avoid rocks worked perfectly.

Jog back through the forest fine. Dull back to Beddgelert and then awesome rocky river path to Nantmor which I loved.

Loved this race; want to do it again pretty much now to improve on pretty much every route choice decision! Probably left 15mins out there.

Weather British - bright sunshine but very cold wind at start meant gloves and ls but no jacket - jacket stayed off all the way but overmittens came on a couple of times, particularly in the two hailstorms - the second of which was a bit of a surprise at the summit of Scafell.

Route choices started right from the outset with some people cutting White Moss straight, but I think the trod by the stone circles was fine. But then from Strava, the route R of the OOB, over Tongue Moor and up just the S of Great Grain Gill, appears to be marginally faster despite having more climb, since it's quite a lot shorter. I think it's so close as to probably not be the best route because who wants an extra 12 contours in a race like this? Actually though it's not that many since you cross the stream higher up, so... one to consider.

Whin Rigg I couldn't see a nice way up through the gorsey stuff near the top and I decided not to trust the other people (should have though) and so I cut less of the corner to the summit that I could have.

Then my Illgill Head route was really bad, I didn't appreciate the 'contouring' path still ascends quite a bit after the col. I tried to contour all the way around at the same height and ended up in a load of rocks (standard) which was bad. Strava shows lots of people did similar things, but the winner just accepted the extra ascent and went the way I'd planned to go (reverse Wasdale line). Some people did drop down much lower but I imagine it was really boggy that way.

From Maiden Castle to Scafell is a tough climb, but all the way up to Green How (1km?) was ankle deep ice cold water. I had been considering coming down the same way, but this changed my mind; didn't want to go through that again. Top few hundred meters of Scafell had an inch of snow on the ground too which was another reason not to want to go back down the scree.

Probably the only section of route I was happy with was the top part from Scafell to Slight Side (ish), basically went straight down as much as possible after the cairns (appeared to) stopped and then started contouring - that seemed to avoid a lot of the rocks. I had expected to find a trod at some point but never did, despite Strava saying I was on it a couple of times. Doing this again I would just take a bearing just to the left of Great How (basically to Stony Tarn) from Scafell - as the terrain is all runnable anyway. Stony Tarn was the first point I knew where I was and then at that point I was enjoying it so much I carried on too far S before checking my compass and turning 90degrees E towards the CP at Eel tarn. But both tarns are so enormous it would be pretty difficult to miss them and so an aggressive inaccurate descent is the way to go here I reckon.

Picked up a place on the road down into the finish.

Results-wise pretty poor, 13 minutes behind Sharon Taylor who I think does usually beat me but not by that much over this distance. Better choices would have eliminated a lot of that time...but I don't actually mind very much as I got out in questionable conditions and enjoyed myself, and it was good training anyway :) but next year I will smash that time.

Changed my mind re Flyknit fit and ordered something else...these feel great.

Hard session since no-one quick turned up, and I refuse to pootle. Feeling good for the pace.

I think that's about 2:54 pace, so a bit fast. Mainly a test of the shoes, which I don't like, but I can probably cope with for 3 hours.

Found it quite hard to keep a consistent pace and would've been hopeless without my watch. I was using lap pace and then autolapping every km, but the downside of that is that for the first 30s of each km the pace is all over the place.
I've now added overall average pace to the screen to keep things in check - should be okay.

No weird aches and pains or anything, but it was only an hour.

Felt really tired, which is a Covid symptom now, so I probably have that.
Decided a rest day probably wouldn't do much harm.

Just Allen and me in the drizzly windy fog. Grim at outset but we went pretty quick to keep warm, and good chat meant that this flew by. Glad I came out.