The Beacons Ultra 2009

For many the event started Friday evening as various groups gathered in and around Talybont on Usk, mainly at the bunkhouse accommodation secured by race organiser, Matt Morris of Likeys. Living locally I had the luxury of spending the night in my own bed and was joined at my place by team mate Colm McCoy and old mate Fitzy who would be marshalling this year.

This time of year the weather in Wales is always going to add to the challenge and leading up to the event we had rain, high winds, more rain, snow and some more rain, it rained quite a lot. On awaking at 05:30, Saturday morning the first thing I did was check the conditions, it wasn’t raining! I could see some stars and there was a bright moon, on opening the window it was surprising mild. After removing the wife’s shoe from the back of my head I closed the window and prepared to head off to race HQ. Colm had made an earlier than expected start having not changed his race watch from BST!

Race HQ was the usual hive of nervous energy as athletes signed on, completed kit checks and flaffed around with their kit, me included. As always it was great to catch up with a number of old friends and familiar faces. A mention must go to Julian Crabtree, if you don’t know Julian, google him, some of the challenges, he has and continues to take on are of a different magnitude to anything I could comprehend. His reputation goes before him, which can have it’s draw backs, he was nominated to spend the duration of the event on top of Tor y Foel at 551m the most exposed point of the course, this he did in great spirits, offering a welcome smile and encouragement to all of us as we topped the toughest section of the course twice.

Soon enough the 07:00 start time came around and we all gathered outside for a final briefing before Matt gave us the signal to start. The course (with some changes from last year) started with a nice gentle 3 miles along the Brecon & Monmouth Canal to warm up, we then turned right and crossed the canal over a small footbridge and started to climb, this would be the beginning of the long drag up to Tor y Foel. As the climb continued the gradient increased, I don’t know if the guys at the sharp end ran this but it was always my plan to take this climb at a steady walk and save the legs. My plan overall was firstly to get around (a good start), I have had a couple of bad moments this year having got my pacing wrong so was very conscious of holding back on the first loop. I felt if I could get around the first loop in under 5 hours without doing too much damage then a finish somewhere in the 10 hour region would be possible. With hindsight I was possibly a little too cautious but of course if I had gone off quicker I could just have easily blown up. Anyway back to the race…..

I know this hill very well and in the right conditions it can offer some fantastic views, as I neared the top, dusk was breaking, the moon was out and there were some views on offer, this really pleased me because it meant that the other athletes who don’t know the area would get a taste of some of the fantastic terrain the race route would take us through. At the top I met Julian and Jo Kilkenny who was carrying a bad ankle injury, I think she knew at this stage that completing the event would be the wrong choice in the long term and just the one loop would be sensible! As I mentioned before we were exposed here and the wind was blowing a gale, so with a thought for Julian, I quickly dropped off the top and headed down to lower ground and a good, level track which would take us to the next CP, manned by Wozza and Fitzy. Again I didn’t hang around long, keeping a steady pace as we dropped through some forestry to join a good track (old railway) which would steadily climb to join a road and then shortly the next CP.
From here it was more steady climbing up the locally known Gap (infamous MTB route), at the top and the highest point of the course we were met by Dave Wiltshire and his 4 wheel drive, on hand to get anyone off the mountain who was really suffering. Dave is an old club mate and another top bloke, in fact, all the marshals were fantastic and no event of this type would ever get off the ground without their support. I said à tout à l’heure a bientôt to Dave and after negotiating the first tricky steps, settled back in to my steady pace, wrapping the quads in cotton wool for loop 2. Mentally it was easy to feel that the loop was now largely done, however there are still quite a few miles left to cover over a mix of minor road, fields and woodland trail before picking up the Canal again at Pencelli to cover the final couple of miles back to Talybont. I was feeling OK and held the pace back telling myself I was only approaching halfway, a quick check of the watch showed me going through at around 4 hours 20 mins, so as long as the wheels didn’t come off 10 hours was possible.

Loop 2, the first 3 miles passed quicker the second time around, probably because I was focussed on what was coming next! The climb this time around was always going to be hard and so it proved, however the legs were still in good order and I plodding on to be greeted by the still smiling Julian. From memory as I headed down I felt the first drops of rain which would get steadily worse as the day worn on. At the next CP I managed to blag a pastry and shared it with two other runners who looked to be suffering more than I was. Having dropped on to the railway track I implemented my planned 5/5 min walk/run schedule all the way to the top of the Gap, I actually felt pretty good and did question whether I should just continue to run, but I knew I was on for the 10 hours and everything had gone well so far so why risk it. The main reasons for adding the walking here was firstly to save the legs for the final 10 miles but more importantly to get plenty of fuel/hydration down, this worked well and by the time I got to the top I was no longer hungry and was keen to get running again. This time it was au revoir to Dave, as I dropped off the Gap the rain worsened and day gave way to dusk.

As I left the woodland trail I spotted a tall, simple looking bloke, smiling and walking towards me, it was Fitzy who was in the process of laying out the glow sticks for those who would be navigating the woods in the dark. We exchanged a few words and he sent me on my way. As I joined the road Martin was sitting in his car having dropped Fitzy off, he jumped out and made me pose for a couple of pictures (although I didn’t need much encouragement). Martin announced I was on for sub 10 hours, just as my watch bleeped for 9 hours down. I continued on my way trying and failing to do the maths in terms of what pace I needed to maintain. I felt an hour was more than enough but kept second guessing myself as I passed landmarks I knew on the canal. By now it was dark and I should have stopped to put the headtorch on, but I was paranoid about time and knew the towpath was a good surface so continued on, I found myself picking up the pace and with hindsight it is encouraging to know that I was able to run at a decent pace at this stage, I set myself the target of reaching the road bridge prior to Talybont with 10 mins to go, I knew if I did this then if necessary I could gun it and finish inside the 10 hours, as it transpired the bridge appeared earlier than expected, the friendly marshal directed me off the canal and it was now just the short road section to the finish.

At the finish I was met by the Sue and others from the Likeys crew and having confirmed I had made it under 10 hours, I had a hot chocolate and a chat with some of the other finishes, the consensus was that it was a tough, challenging but fantastic route and overall a very well organised event, sentiments I would fully echo. Colm who had a long drive to Cambridge to look forward to had hung around to see me finish and thank me for putting him up the night before (despite the fact he must have only slept 3 hours at best), another top bloke and strong runner, having finished in sub 8 hours. Colm and Martin Buck our third team member had been involved in a head to head over the last few miles, pushing each other to the point of being physically sick and as a result Martin returned another fantastic time of 8 hours and few seconds. With me bringing up the rear in 9 hours and 46 mins Brecon Multisport were second team home which was very pleasing, well done chaps!

So in summary and initially on a personal level I have to say I really enjoyed the whole experience, I achieved my personal aims, finishing second team is down to Colm and Martin with two great runs and adds the icing to the cake. It has restored some confidence and gives me something to build on in to 2010. I could be accused of being biased, the Likeys crew are friends going back years, Matt is a good friend and my often Adventure Racing partner, I live locally and love the terrain, but having done a few one day Ultras in my time and trying to be objective I do genuinely feel that the Beacons Ultra is a cut above and has the potential to be become a classic, all we need now is a Summer version to show the park off in it’s best light.

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Frenchy.

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