Originally Posted by
Travs
Decided to play to my strengths this year and go for the short race... with two big climbs and just the one descent, surely i could pick up a good result here....?
Made a rapid start (as planned) and found myself in 4th place behind young superstar Harry Bolton of Keswick, and a Dark Peak and Eryri vest.... managed to hang onto their tails, but completely lost touch with them on the Gribyn ridge... i found myself having to climb down a couple of times after ending up on exposed/steep rock, and by the time i'd came out on the Glyder plateau, my 2min+ cushion on those behind had evaporated to about 30secs.
Despite the clear weather i again made a meal of the long descent to Pen Y Pass... it really is quite confusing at times, even in good visibility.... on reaching PyP i was back to 6th and didn't even stop for water, as could see what i thought was 4th/5th heading up the first bit of the Pyg Track... so charged straight across the road and gave chase.
As expected i reeled them in within about 10mins and quickly pulled away.... but then to my shock i spotted another guy who must've sneaked past... he was actually in 4th and not me... this fella was moving well and we were closing in on the final long zig-zags up to the Finger Stone before i got on his shoulder... on the steep zigzags i had a slight edge, and on the out-and-back to Carnedd Ugain i could see i had a 60-90secs cushion to see me up Snowdon.... however on the 5min final climb up Snowdon i could see he was still running everything so i couldn't let off at all.
Finally dibbed at Snowdon summit in 2hrs07 for 4th place and 1st v40.
That guy really made me work for it and thanks to him for some great racing. We really made each other suffer and that's what its all about, i reckon we pushed each other's time on by at least a couple of minutes.
Had a look back through the old results and there's only been one year since 2007 where my time wouldn't have been in the top 4 or 5, so was a worthy result. However i appreciate that conditions were good, and really i think to go from a "decent" time to an "impressive" one, i really need to look to push that under 2hrs...
Whether i can do that is another matter... would need favourable conditions again, and to actually get the Pen Y Pass descent nailed, and still pick up a couple more minutes.
Will see what i can do next year!
Pete