Salvaging the summer - Welsh 3000s record attempt (Running)

Tuesday 31 August 2010 03:40PM

I haven’t written anything for ages because there’s been very little of note to write about climbing or mountains. In between the excitement of starting a PhD and planning a wedding, I was meant to be doing as many awesome races as possible. Since Jura at the end of May this just hasn’t panned out. Instead I’ve spent much of the time feeling a bit under the weather, with bouts of full-blown illness every few weeks or so. I was ill the weekend of the Ennerdale race so missed that one, I spent a whole weekend reccying Wasdale but by race-day had missed 6 weeks of training through illness so it didn’t seem worth turning up, then I dropped out of Borrowdale (having also spent a couple of days reccying the route) after an hour feeling under the weather and spent the next day in bed with a fever.

The good news is that in the midst of all this I went to see my doctor and had a blood test. This showed that I had low iron levels, which we decided might explain why I kept getting ill and why my performances were so up and down. After a few days of iron supplements I felt dramatically better – more energy and better able to train. The improvement since then has continued, and while my performance in short races is still poor, I seem to be running well over long distances (in training at least), so the fact that the final two ambitions for the summer are both real “biggies” is good.

First up is an attempt to break the record for the Welsh 3000s, which has stood at 4hr 19 since 1988. For those who don’t know this route, it starts on the summit of Snowdon, then traverses all the Welsh summits that reach over 3000feet (15 of them in total) to finish on Foel Fras in the Carnedds, after a distance of around 25 miles and with an ascent of 3000m. The record is held by Colin Donnelly, who is undoubtably one of the greatest fell runners the UK has ever produced, and in ‘88 he was at his best and living locally, so it’ll be a real toughy to beat. I’ve spent many days reccying the route now, and have run each leg in times that, if I add them up, leaves me very close to his time. I’ve now just got to run them all back to back at the same pace! Easier said than done, but I’m very psyched! I should be giving it a go this coming friday, weather permitting (it’s looking good at the moment).

After that I’m going out to Italy to do the Sentiero delle Grigne Skymarathon. I did this race three years ago but ran dissapointingly, so I’m phsyched to go back and make amends. It’s part of the world skyrunning series this year, so the competition will no doubt be top notch! Short film of the 2008 race (last time it was a world-series race) here.