Saturday, April 20, 2013

Bit Of A Bimble

I'd like to say I had a good run - but I didn't. I did, however, have a pretty good bog stomp. To say I picked a runnable route would be an utter falsehood. It was rough as a badgers arse for much of the route. That's not to say it wasn't fun. I didn't even get sense of humour failure despite it being so bloody time consuming. I did, however, have to cut things short. I didn't quite make it to the planned Fan Fraith turn back point. Had I continued with the original plan I think I'd still be out there...

Anyway, I set off east from the Storey Arms following the South Wales traverse route up past Y Gyrn and onwards up towards Corn Du and back down again just to get some extra ascent in before I headed west into the rough stuff.

Once back down to the road below Storey, things got rougher. The route to Fan Fawr wasn't too bad if a little squiggy underfoot. The run off Fan Fawr down to the reservoir damn was runnable but tussocky in places and I made steady progress. The climb out of the valley to the forest plas-y-gors was rough and very boggy. Once or twice I thought I was going to be pulled below the surface, forever to remain assimilated into the sphagnum moss. Alas, I was able to pull free.

Once heading out of the forest I made my decision to cut the corner and start heading back. Rather than continuing to Fan Fraith I cut the corner past Fan Nedd and climbed to Fan Llia. From there it was the normal route back to the van, parked just below the Arms. The section from the forest to Fan llia was pretty terrible going. It was so slow going but there was just no way to run. It was good, tiring work though and despite cutting the distance back to around 18 miles with only 4,500 feet of ascent I feel as knackered as if I had run further.

Well I reckon I should be nicely warmed up now for Chepstow's Offa's Orra tomorrow. I expect I'll grab a PB...

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