My first race in Snowdonia, and I was very nervous as a result. The fact that my quads were in pieces all week after a weekend in the Lakes meant that I swapped to the short course but was still anxious that I’d fall apart halfway through.

Our relatively small field of 35 people was released from the corner of the Idwal path at 10:30 and straight into the agony of the Bochlwyd stream path. Something went horribly wrong at the start and I accidentally found myself in third place. Nevertheless it felt reasonable and by the time we got to the football field below the steep bit of Y Gribin I was still alternating between fourth and fifth.

I cocked up there by following a chap in an Eryri vest who I assumed had secret local knowledge. We actually ended up on horribly damp off-camber ground way too far right. I wasn’t happy and spent ages deciding whether to continue onto steep ground and terrify myself or back-track onto familiar and easier ground. I eventually chose the latter but lost a lot of time.

Across the top of Glyder Fawr I passed a couple of people, and pulled a good flanking manoeuvre towards Pen y Pass to catch a couple more. Pushing hard, experience won me some time on the Pyg Track because I knew what was in store. A well-managed pace eventually saw me nearing the top of the zig-zags and I continued putting some serious effort in up Carnedd Ugain.

The final climb from Bwlch Glas to the summit of Snowdon wasn’t too bad, and the person behind me wasn’t visible and therefore presumably wasn’t going to catch me. Sure enough they didn’t and I finished in 2h 10m, ending up in fifth place. Stuart and Clare (first lady) weren’t far behind me at all, and Gerard appeared shortly after; within a few minutes most of us had convened in the cafe for a bit of recovery. Chris had a great run too, coming second on the long course. After some cramped and over-priced food, we had a sociable and leisurely descent, with only a small proportion of the party accidentally descending the wrong path to the Snowdon Ranger youth hostel instead of Llanberis!

My GPS trace shows that I lost five minutes with the indecision about route on the Gribin – taking those off my time elevates me to second place. I was also pleased to see that my pace on the Pen y Pass to Snowdon leg was exactly the same as the chap who won. So there’s definitely a lesson to be learned there about knowing your route and sticking to it. Obviously I benefited massively overall from the fact that a lot of fast people were doing the long leg and so there wasn’t as much competition as in a normal race, but I’m still happy with fifth and will definitely be heading back next year (but for the long or short course??).