24 October: Busy Doing Nothing

Today's phantom afflictations: pretendy cold; sore left calf muscle. Actually the sore calf is real. Not life-threatening though. Weather forecast for Saturday: heavy rain.

It's a lovely day again, which makes it all the more annoying that the weekend is going to bring the first serious weather front for weeks. It's the same for everyone though. Although I take the usual bike ride to work and back, I decide not to do anything else. I feel tired and in need of sleep so spend a lazy evening doing very little after a slow day at work.

All the more time to ponder the most dreaded part of the race : not dreaded by me, I have to say, but by most. At about 21 miles, we reach the friendly village of Waunfawr. Much friendlier than a village whose name means "large bog" has any need to be, but then they know what is coming to the runners who by rights should be looking forward to the closing stages. It's no longer a marathon, it's a five mile hill race after the world's toughest warm-up! It starts as soon as we turn off the main road - and follow lane up a steep hill. This goes on for just over a mile and a half and 600', and is followed by another mile and a half with a further 200' of up. Before it's done, the tarmac has evaporated and we're on a stony track going over the pass at Bwlch y Groes. Turn right at the top and you're on the skirts of Moel Eilio, part of a fine long ridge walk from Llanberis to Snowdon and vastly preferable to the fast pitched path that almost everyone uses to get between the two. However, we're not going up Snowdon, or even Moel Eilio today. No, we're going to descend 900' in just over a mile. To start with, it's still a stony track, and therefore fast and fun to run - after that, there's a tarmac section which is dangerously fast on tired legs.

The key to getting up the hill is going to be to Wind it Up. An immediate change of gear, before lactic strangulation, is the only way it's going to be possible to run up all the way- get it wrong and it's a mandatory walk. Even at the slowest possible pace, anyone that runs the hill has a big advantage over 90% of the field, so running at any speed is all that is needed. Down the other side, it's time to Let Yourself Go - you're racing mostly road-runners so it's really easy to make up a lot of places by picking a fast line and avoiding the slower runners in front. All of which leads up to the hardest mile of all - after all that winding up and letting go, there'll be barely enough left in the cupboard to run another mile - so it's a good job that is only a mile!