3000s record attempt - hotter than hell (Running)

Sunday 05 September 2010 02:28PM

Friday’s record attempt went exactly to plan. Well, it did for the first forty minutes. After that the heat began to take its toll, and I began to suffer. Half way up Elidir Fawr it was obvious the record attempt was off, and I started instead to focus on beating the previous record, set by fell-running legeng Joss Naylor, of 4 hours 46 minutes. Then around the Glyders it became obvious I was losing too much time to do this, and I started to focus on getting under 5 hours, on the way up Pen Yr Ole Wen this too started to look unrealistic and so I decided on trying to get within an hour of Colin Donnelly’s record of 4 hours 19. Finally this too became too much and I settled for just nipping inside the women’s record with a time of 5 hours 22 minutes.

The whole way round felt extremely hot, and since it hasn’t been hot in the UK much in the past few months I was completely unprepared for this. It made running hard very difficult, and on top of that I was having to consume vast quantities of liquid – I think I drank at least 6 litres on the route, and so had an almost constant stitch. To make matters worse the early pace, essential if I was going to stand a chance at the record, took so much out of me that I was almost crawling by the end. I’m sure if I’d set off to run a steady pace aiming for 5 hours, I could have done it, but having set the scene with a 31-minute Snowdon – Carnedd Ugain – Crib Goch – Llanberis pass leg, the only option was a gradual and painful deterioration in pace.

Still, the day was fun, in a retrospective kind of a way, I learnt a lot about suffering. Perhaps most importantly I learnt that I’m not able to reach all the bits of my back to apply suncream. Ouch.

To stand a decent chance at the record I need to be fitter, I need to be better rested (I still felt a bit tired from the record-pace reccys from four days before) and I need cooler weather. I now need to work out whether I can get all those things sometime this autumn, or whether it’ll take longer than that to get fit enough.

Thanks to Kate and Ross for help and support in Nant Peris and on Elidir Fawr, Alan for support on Elidir Fawr, Sam for pacing, drinks and banter over the Glyders, Sarah for drinks and support on Pen Yr Ole Wen, Iain for pacing, drinks and more banter over the Carneddau, Bamboo chicken for support and pictures and dad for helping me out throughout the route, and rescuing the attempt by getting water to the helpers on the Carneddau when I could no longer stomach energy drink!

Some pics here.