Brecon 50 - run retrospective

Doing scrum for an ultramarathon

Being a software developer and occasional project manager, looking back on how things have gone and trying to improve them is built into my day to day life, so it's natural to do the same thing after a big event like a race.

What went well

Food. Food went really well, pure peanut butter has enough carb to keep me going, mixed with enough fat and protein that it doesn't make me ill. I didn't even get bored of it, as I was hungry enough to eat pretty much anything.

Kit. I'll post about kit separately, but mostly my kit choices worked really well. I'm pretty good at kit selection by now.

Pacing. I took Bernd Heinrich's advice and started very slow. That gave my metabolism time to ramp up, and I maintained my target pace to the very end.

Rereading 'Why we run'. My favourite running book. I should rely on it more.

Enjoyment. In 2012 I finished the Fellsman swearing I'd never do it again. In 2019 I've finished every ultra feeling like I want to go out and do another, just as soon as I've had a few weeks rest. I was very very glad to see the end of the Brecon, but not for one second did I regret entering.

Photos. My old Samsung B2100 takes adequate pictures and is totally waterproof.

Navigation. This was the first time using a gps track as primary. Having the gps in my hand / pocket and being able to check every few seconds made the navigation easy. I'd have been much slower with just the map on an unfamiliar route. Hacking contours onto the Garmin Topoactive made a huge difference, without the contours I'd have been much less confident about my surroundings**.

Running solo. Over the years I've sometimes run slow times because I didn't want to say to people 'I want to go faster than you're going'. I've learned to understand that I don't feel snubbed if someone disappears and gets a much faster time than me, so I shouldn't feel bad about 'running on'.
In general I'm very happy running ultras alone. I enjoy the thinking time you get in a 15 hour race, although I never feel like I've gained any great insights in that time. It's very relaxing to be running alone for that long though.

What didn't go well

Confidence. For most of the day I was bricking it about going over Y Gribyn in 60mph winds, or struggling to navigate round it. I worried about messing up any alternate route and getting disqualified or ending up somewhere bad. This was habitual over-worrying - I'm an experienced mountain runner and a better navigator than most, I was carrying a well set up gps and spare batteries, as well as a good map and compass, a mobile phone, a PLB and full mountain safety kit ( warm clothing, survival bag etc ). But being scared and cautious keeps me alive, so that's ok.

Water bottles. I had hip pain towards the end because I'd habitually drunk my right hand bottle dry, and left my left hand bottle full which unbalanced my pack. I should vary my drinking to keep my pack balanced.

Shoes. BAD shoe choice.

Video. One of my fellow runners took some video on the top to demonstrate how awful it was. I never thought of that.

The last few miles. I really could have run more in the last 4 miles. Once I met up with the guys in front I couldn't be arsed to overtake, and in truth I could have gained a few minutes if I'd bothered.

CP3. I was getting tired at CP3 and stood around much too long chatting. This is common for me towards the end of an ultra, I'll grab any excuse to chat with marshalls, members of the public etc rather than getting on with running.

Waterproofs. Two things: I need to sew up the pocket slits in my waterproof trousers, they inflated and blew the warm air out; and I should have put them on as soon as my legs started getting properly cold.



** the gps knows exactly where I am. It's a sign of a habitual map reader that I'm more confident about my location if I can understand the surrounding topography. In truth, the gps knows where I am to within a metre, my understanding of the contours just makes me feel better.

Brecon 50 - oh how it rained

The Brecon was my 2nd 50 miler, and my 5th ultra. In the last few weeks we've had record breaking high temperatures, and I'd planned ahead for food, hydration and clothing in case of severe heat.

And then.

Widespread flooding, severe winds, but still warm.

Registration was between 5 and 7am. I was on Park Farm campsite the night before, I arrived at registration around 6.15 and it was still pretty quiet. It filled up very rapidly and by 7 there were I think 70 registered.

Blurry photo of registration, my phone still had silicon sealant on the lens.

The race briefing made reference to the weather, and the possibility of redirecting around Y Gribyn if we were concerned. At that point I wasn't sure.

Climbing Tabletop from Crickhowell

My plan for the day was to keep my pace very low for the first hour or so, to get my metabolism burning fat instead of ripping through glycogen. My metabolic issues with sugar make it impossible to use gels etc, so I had to make damn sure I eked out the glycogen for as long as possible. I had a couple of baby food pouches of Meridian peanut butter and some baby bels.

Keeping to a steady 5kph all the way up Tabletop, I chatted with a few people as I climbed. Once we hit the top talking was out of the question. The wind was fairly bad, visibility maybe 50m, and the rain was wet. Very wet.

Pen Cerrig Calch. It was wet.

I fell over twice coming down off Pen Cerrig Calch. I'd taken the organisers comment that the route is more trail than fell a bit too literally, especially given the weather. Freet Connects just weren't grippy enough for the wet grass, although this was the only time I fell over. Well, almost.

Navigation was interesting on this event. Coming from a fell running background, I'm not in the habit of navigating by GPS. It seems to be the norm on ultras, and since the point of an ultra is endurance rather than nav skills that makes sense. This was the first time I'd tried to navigate over any distance relying totally on following a GPX track, and although I had a slight wobble initially I soon got the hang of it.

Down Pen Cerrig Calch and up towards Mynydd Llangorse, veering off before the summit through some lovely heathery slopes, then down to CP1 on the canal at Llangynidr.

Mynydd Llangorse. I think.

Having lost quite a bit of time loitering around checkpoints on the Calderdale Way Ultra I was aiming to keep moving, so once the marshall had filled my water bottles I got going, bimbling along the canal for a while before climbing over the ridge (more heavy rain and wind) and dropping to Tal Y Bont reservoir.

Tal Y Bont reservoir

From the reservoir we climbed fairly rapidly up Waun Rydd, and that's where things started to get really dirty.

Looking back from the climb up Waun Rydd

About halfway up, my legs were starting to get badly cold, so I stopped and put waterproof trousers on. I was already wearing gloves & a buff round my neck, as well as waterproof coat and cap. The ground was saturated on the last steep section, and my feet were slipping quite a bit. There's a cairn just as you reach the plateau, and a couple of guys were there putting extra layers on. I was already layered up and just paused for a few seconds to gather myself, then headed out. The buffeting was severe, my waterproofs were flapping violently and occasional gusts were strong enough to make the skin of my face flap too. I think the wind was as bad as anything I've ever been out in, if not worse.

It didn't take long to cross the plateau, but my feet and hands were pretty numb, and the descent was made much more difficult by gusts of wind.

Near the bottom I had a brief exchange with some dog walkers:

"Are you guys in a race?"
"Yes"
"How far"
"Fifty miles"
"Oh my goodness, how's it going?"
"Crap!"

A slight nav error at this point - I stuck the GPS in my pocket and as a result overshot the stile. I caught the error within a couple of minutes though, and was soon back on it.

CP2 at Llanfrynach was very welcome. Especially the coffee. I guzzled down a cup black, got my water bottles filled, and had a brief chat with the marshalls who mentioned the possibility of a reroute.

There's a short road section next, maybe a couple of km before the canal again. I passed a group of surprisingly cheerful looking DofEers, then settled onto the canal into Brecon, passing lots of normal, sane, not-ultra-runner people walking along the canal.

At Brecon I encountered a couple of guys who I think I kept company with on and off almost to the end. They were shovelling in the food ahead of the next climb. They left me behind climbing up through the woods, and I lost track of them. Somewhere in the little roads I met up with a guy in a car who had bailed out of the 100 that morning. He mentioned again the possibility of a reroute, which actually cheered me up quite a bit. I'd been getting very nervous about the prospect of Y Gribyn and Pen Y Fan in that weather.

From there to CP3 was an evil set of tiny overgrown paths with wild rose suckers at ankle and eye height, floored with lots of pointy stones. My feet were quite battered from getting cold on Waun Rydd and this tenderised them even more. At CP3 the marshall fed me cheese, told me the 100 had been abandoned and gave me the reroute (straight over the Taff Trail to meet up with the original route at the far side of the col).

The Taff Trail is mostly made of pointy rocks. Ouch.

Looking back from the col along the Taff Trail. With sore feet.

All the way to the forestry track. Ouch.

At this point I was passed for about the fourth time by two guys who I thought were in front of me. This happened twice more before the end. They just kept going wrong long enough for me to overtake them.

One more brief climb to CP4, another reroute, more water, and the beginning of a very long run in.

The forestry track from CP4 towards Tal Y Bont wasn't too bad. My feet were quite sore though:

"Those shoes don't look to have much padding"
"None at all, they're barefoot shoes"
"Your feet must be sore"
"Yep"

but the path from the forestry track down to Tal Y Bont village was excruciating. Pointy rocks again, like the Taff Trail only worse, and it seemed to go on forever.

Finally I reached the canal, which also seemed to go on forever, and tried to keep my pace up for the run back to Crickhowell. It was full dark by the time I got back at 22:15, where I was greeted by a very cheerful marshall with a cowbell.

Lovely people fed me tea and soup.

I still haven't managed to get my Suunto to upload my track, but my nav GPS recorded it. I did 14:16, a bit slower than I'd hoped but without the sugar wipeout that screwed up my running at Calderdale. My pace was very consistent - after the planned slow start I settled to 6kph and stayed there.

The organisers did a fantastic job of salvaging the 50 in awful weather. We ended up slightly over distance and slightly under ascent, so the overall challenge was probably not much different. It's a real shame for the 100 runners, especially those who stuck it out to the point where the race was abandoned, but the weather was truly horrific. The thunder and lightning I'd originally worried about never appeared, but the wind and rain more than made up for it.

Thank you to the organisers, massive thanks to the marshalls, and thanks for your company to all the other runners I chatted with along the way.

Looking weirdly cheerful at 40 miles.

Edit: Finally got the track to upload. Suunto really doesn't work well if you don't have a windows PC at home...

https://www.strava.com/activities/2613172089