Snowdonia 2007

Part way through the fourth rep up Foxholes with Norman’s squad on Thursday evening I wondered if this was good preparation for the Snowdonia Marathon. Nearing the top of Pen-y-Pass, part way through the fourth mile in the race, my doubts began to firm up, and later, towards the end of the fourth hour, they had well and truly crystallised. Something had gone seriously wrong; but what?

Although conditions were not brilliant for the first half of the race, things fined up later and we had a following wind for quite a long part of the back straight; so I can’t really blame the weather. Ok, I was a pound heavier and just a day short of one year older than last year, but my miles were up slightly and I had been feeling good. No excuses, it just didn’t happen on the day, and I ran a disappointing 4-18. Twenty-one minutes slower than last year and my second slowest marathon ever. John also seemed disappointed with his 4-08 and second over 65 (out of 12 in that category it has to be said).

Before the race I was thinking that I might give it a miss in 2008, but I can’t bow out on a low, so I’ll be aiming for another sub 4 hour and doing a bit more preparation.

Other Horwich results were a bit mixed, John Foulds ran 3-39 dead, Tony Varley did 3-57 (well run Tone), Alex McVey finished in 4-52, whilst Albert DNF’d; no detail of what went wrong at the time of going to press.

Later, I had a quick pint at the evening ‘do’ and was amused to see that two enormous bouncers had been hired. Seemed a bit unnecessary to have a couple of guys, who must have weighed almost as much as the entire collection of runners put together, to police a gathering that had as much fight in them as a pack of stick insects on a bad day. Perhaps they’d heard about runners hitting the wall and didn’t want the premises damaged.

Ed.