Snowdonia Weekend. Saturday 5th May.

We have had our first weekend away running up some slightly steeper terrain in a vain attempt to try and replicate what the Transalpine will dish out to us.
We know that we will come up against some very tough inclines and declines come September but you just don't get the Alps in the UK!! We are trying though!!

We set off on the morning of 4th May to travel across to Wales to trek along the Snowdonia mountain range.

Fortunately for us the car we ended up going in was a top end autobiography Range Rover sport which we took great delight in cruising around in all weekend. So much so I think we pressed and adjusted every button in the thing to see what it done!

We started setting up camp in BeddGelert around 6pm and promptly took ourselves to the pub for some dinner and a few beers to prepare us for the next days adventures.

This was my tipple of choice...I do like to try Real beers I've not had before...got plenty of practice over the weekend :)

After a very cold and sleepless night had by myself due to my air bed being punctured - which meant that my not suitable for a cold night in Wales summer sleeping bag, didn't protect me from the cold hard floor.
I just had to listen to all the sounds (you all know the ones) of 3 other lads in a tent whilst being envious of how cosy and warm they all looked and with actually being asleep!!

Saturday 5th - The running day!

We got ourselves up nice and early to make breakfast with Dave's trusty camp gear...I swear the man has a piece of equipment for everything!

Once we had washed up and got our gear on it was decided that we were running up Mt.Snowdon via the Watkins path.
As we got a couple of miles into our route we recorded our first video via Jamie Stafford (Staff).

So we progressed up to the foot of Snowdon.........more videos followed.....

Added in a bit of Staff humour in the next one...... Ian Fleming would be proud!

Thankfully he didn't have any RogerMores with him.....feel for his missus!..... good for him though haha

As we were fleet footing up the Watkins path we caught up with a young lad taking a breather and would you know the kid was a whippet!! We were trying to keep up with him once he got started again...I'm sure he was only about 11. We did the only thing we could think of to get past him...we grabbed him, tied his laces together and rolled him down the hill with a packet of jelly beans and cheerio!!

OF COURSE WE DIDN'T DO THAT!....we had no jelly beans haha
As we approached the summit of Snowdon we left our little mate and climbed up the jagged rocks passing quite a few of the guys training for the 3 peaks challenge. Once up there we had a quick group photo and chipped it into the cafe for a coffee and a bite to eat....cue photos.....

DAMN we're cool!!

So after our brief stop we took it upon ourselves to become champion fell runners across the peaks across from Snowdon (I have forgotten them names).

JK then revealed his hidden talents of bounding and jumping across the terrain like a crazed Jack Russell on party pills....the boy flew across these things whilst I was busy trying not to fall off! I did miss judge a rock and had a gouch related incident.....there was a yelp.....followed by laughter and we carried on!

More pictures now....

This is my favourite picture from the whole weekend. (above)

  I wasn't quite in my power stance for this one......#prematurepicturetaken! ( I look more like a teapot! albeit a semi powerful one haha)

 A quick look back at Dave, a mini MT.Doom and my ever receding crown....it's a cruel hair world

 Sitting...contemplating a Wayne Rooney hair transplant...

Off the fells we came to our scheduled pit stop.

 You may think that we weren't prepared for our run and that we were in desperate need of a cafe but fear not! I carried the gas cylinder, Staff the burner, JK the Spoons and our own individual........... POT NOODLE!!

 Yes I am very nutrition conscious being in the fitness world but! when you have been on your feet in the elements and fancy a hot bit of grub.....who cares! mmmmm tasty refined foods.....well I say tasty, it was hot.

 Oh yeah, JK carried extra water for the pot noodles.

Long blog post this isn't it!  Not far from the end now.

So we packed up and made our way for the end phase of our day- If memory serves me right I believe we were around 5hr 30mins into our day by this point. We headed down hill and it a very short period it got quite funny.

With one turn of my head looking back I missed Staff fall flat onto his side....It was classic! It happened so fast that what made me look forward quicker was JK bursting out with laughter with Staff in the foetal position slightly groaning. This must of put me off as about 50 yards down the track I came up to a boggy patch, tried to get round it...failed and fell into it....cue more JK and group laughter!

 The route home took us through a lovely stretch of woodland, coupled with the sun shining through the trees.  Was a fitting end to what was a good honest days training.

As I was going through this nice wooded area I felt the need as I quite often do, to make a video.....

To round things off nicely I have a picture of our total length of time on our feet for the day....

7hrs followed by a few beers

Nick.