Wow, that was quite a run, I was smashing records all over the place.<\/p>\n
Wednesday morning seems to be my day for a long hilly run. Not that long in comparison to what some people do, but long enough for me. As the nearest hills are about 4 miles from here, I tend to drive to the bottom of them and run from there. I have a few different courses that I do but usually stick to the same routes and therefore know my timings and reords at various points on these courses.<\/p>\n
Today’s run was from Borth. I didn’t feel that ‘up for it’ but as soon as I got going I felt quite spritely and felt quite good. It starts with the Rhyd y Garreg Climb<\/a> out of Borth, a steady, 0.6 mile climb with an average gradient of 8.5%. I went quite hard from the start and then pushed harder up towards a maximum effort up and over the top. My previous best for this climb was 5:30, but I knocked 7 seconds off that today with a time of 5:23. A new course record on a Strava segment, and not a bad way to start the run, so I continued pushing hard.<\/p>\n After a long descent into Dolybont, the run turns upwards again for the Tannery Climb<\/a>, another 0.6 mile long climb with an average gradient of 9.2%. I didn’t quite manage a course record on this one, but did get my second best time of 5:27, just 4 seconds off my best ever. So, that was another Strava\u00a0achievement and I was now on target for a course record for the whole run.<\/p>\n No time to dither, I kept pushing along the back of the run and then turned onto the brutal Pentrebach\u00a0Climb<\/a>. I hadn’t realised until writing this that the Strava segment for this only records the bottom part of the climb, a 0.5 mile, 8.3% climb. I actually continue up beyond this and run to the top of hill at Staylittle and then along a flat and up further to the highest point of the run, making this an undulating climb of 1.2 miles averaging out at 4.1%. I pushed as hard as I could up this, giving it my all and once again got a course record on the Pentrebach Climb, knocking a massive 14 seconds off my previous best, and a new course record on the full climb, knocking 20 seconds off that.<\/p>\n I was now pretty tired though, just a long descent back into Dolybont and the final even more brutal climb up the other side of Rhyd y Garreg into Borth. For some reason Strava splits this climb into two. There must be a flat in between but I barely notice it. Starav records it as a 0.5 mile steep climb at 9.4% followed by a 0.3 mile kick to the top at the steeper gradient of 9.6%. Yes, it’s a mean way to finish off an already tough run!<\/p>\n I managed another course record on the bottom part<\/a>, knocking 5 seconds off my previous personal best to give me a time of 4:31. I was pretty much toast by now though and my legs and lungs were screaming at me to stop. I kept pushing as hard as I could, but lost most of those gains on the top part<\/a>, missing out on a course record over this segment by 4 seconds, but still with my second fastest time so another little medal on Strava!<\/p>\n Now it was just a quick chance to try to recover over the top and then a run downhill to Borth followed by a 10 minute cool down and some stretches. By the time I hit Borth I knew I was on for a Personal Best around the entire course and was already thinking about how reluctant I would be to run this route again as beating that was going to be near impossible for me.<\/p>\n