It’s now six and a half weeks since Dragon’s Back finished, and I’ve been reasonably busy in that time. I was lucky enough not to be entirely broken by the race, and so got back into doing some basic level of exercise fairly quickly. First up was a weekend of biking and camping at/near LLandegla. My camera changed settings by itself fairly early during the events described here, so you’re in for some low-quality pictures I’m afraid.
Gareth decided it would be more exciting if we had to do some trail-side bike maintenance, so he snapped his chain at the furthest possible point from the car park.
Fortunately the two end joined back together perfectly, right up until the point where they split apart again a couple of kilometres further down the trail.
After finishing a fun but tiring loop we picked up James, completed a boys’ shopping trip (which went swimmingly), and met Jono at the camp site. At one point we did disguise Gareth’s phone as a small car to try and take over the Bluetooth speaker in the tent next to us, but alas it seems Bose did consider some basic security when designing their products.
I flew a power kite for the first time that evening, but unfortunately there aren’t any pictures because it turned into a four-man job to get the thing flying. James and Jono did sterling work hoisting it back into the air each time I sent it careering into the ground, and Gareth turned out to be excellent ballast (hanging onto the back of the harness to stop me flying away).
On the Sunday I did another lap of Llandegla, this time with James. It’s been a while since he or his bike have been out, and we had a lot of fun bombing around like it was 1997.
A couple of weeks later I was back in North Wales, this time with Becs and her shiny new bike. On day one we had a quick blast around the blue loop at Coed y Brenin (lovely little trail), and followed that up with blue at Llandegla the following day since we were passing on the way home.
All went well (apart from Becs being better at climbing than I am), so that bodes well for future trips.
The next weekend wasn’t quite as fast-paced but was just as enjoyable – a mini DBR reunion for a wander over Moel Siabod. I mis-judged part of the bog of eternal stench on the approach to Daear Ddu ridge, and ended up calf-deep in disgustingness. Some skillful extraction of feet ensured I didn’t lose either shoe – result!
As always, Siabod delivered a fun day out and plenty of clag on the top.
I’ve still not found the optimum way off that hill in the cloud.
Finally, I snatched another quick (ish) run last weekend, with a variation of the Pedol Peris race route. First up through the LLanberis quarries – 800m ascent in the first hour, in what turned out to be the hottest part of the day.
Fortunately, I felt pretty good at Elidir Fawr and continued to do so all the way to Pen y Pass.
From there I fought the hordes up to Crib Goch (foolish route choice on my part!), where my prior preparation came in handy and I didn’t have to threaten to push anyone off due to low blood sugar.
I carried on over Crib y Ddysgyl, down the Snowdon Ranger and then over Moel Cynghorion. Three different people called me ‘brave’ over the course of the day, which struck me as a strange choice of words, but I’m not one to turn down compliments (particularly if they’re the kind that don’t normally get thrown at me!). Strava suggested I had PBs from Pen y Pass to the top of Crib Goch, and across the ridge itself too, so I can’t be suffering too much from my five-day excursion. My quads are pretty trashed today, but it was a lovely way to get back in to the swing of things – roll on some more summer fun!