I woke up on the Saturday morning to thunder and lightning, and a torrential downpour. I was really undecided whether to go or not, thinking that it wasn’t a particularly good idea to be running through a forest in a thunder storm. However, the thought that other Striders were competing in the Blenheim Triathlon and Sandstone Trail races that day made my excuse seem a bit feeble. Also Chris assured me that it would be ‘character building!’ so I went.
It was about an hour drive to Llandegla, and the races started and finished at the visitor centre, with a café and cycle shop. Registration was quick and easy, and we were given a smart black technical T-shirt.
As we were there about an hour early, as recommended to park up etc, Chris went off to run with the dog, and decided to run the route in reverse, and be back in time to see me finish. I met up with Philip Truman, who was running the 10K.
The half marathon started at 12.00 and the 10K at 12.15. As we waited for the start the rain started again, and we were all soaked and shivering by the time the race started. Within 1 minute the narrow lane started to climb, and the coats soon came off. We turned into forest tracks, both muddy and gravel. The course was extremely undulating which for me included lots of walking opportunities. At 4 miles, I met Chris running towards me, having enjoyed his run, and informing me that the bog trotting we had recently experienced in Scotland would be coming in useful. At around 9 miles the trails exited the forest and climbed out onto the moors up to Offas Dyke. The first part was really nice easy running on a plank footpath. This soon disappeared, and was replaced with mud and bogs. It was knee deep in places, and the kind of ground which you didn’t know how far you were going to sink in! This continued for 2 miles before dropping down to a reservoir, running around that and back up to the finish.
For more information visit the Big Welsh Trail website.