{"id":5559,"date":"2017-07-10T21:23:22","date_gmt":"2017-07-10T20:23:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/?p=5559"},"modified":"2022-04-11T16:39:13","modified_gmt":"2022-04-11T15:39:13","slug":"runners-and-riders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/runners-and-riders\/","title":{"rendered":"Runners and Riders"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s now six and a half weeks since Dragon’s Back finished<\/a>, 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<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n

\"Finally

Finally at the top of the 5km Llandegla climb. \u00a9\u00a0Haydn Williams 2017<\/p><\/div>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"Gareth

Gareth plus broken chain. \u00a9 Haydn Williams 2017<\/p><\/div>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"Gareth

Gareth plus broken chain – pt ii. \u00a9\u00a0Haydn Williams 2017<\/p><\/div>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"\u00a34.25

\u00a34.25 for BBQ tools, or \u00a31.67 for a trowel. Easy choice. James on cooking duty. \u00a9\u00a0Haydn Williams 2017<\/p><\/div>\n

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).<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"James

James and I have been riding together for 20 years now. But we’re definitely not old. \u00a9\u00a0Haydn Williams 2017<\/p><\/div>\n

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<\/a> (lovely little trail), and followed that up with blue at Llandegla the following day since we were passing on the way home.<\/p>\n

\"Specialized

Specialized catalogue image. \u00a9 Haydn Williams 2017<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Becs

Becs getting better at the downhills. \u00a9 Haydn Williams 2017<\/p><\/div>\n

All went well (apart from Becs being better at climbing than I am), so that bodes well for future trips.<\/p>\n

The next weekend wasn’t quite as fast-paced but was just as enjoyable – a mini DBR<\/abbr> 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!<\/p>\n

\"Ladies

Ladies and gentlemen, your new long jump champion! \u00a9\u00a0Lisa Sammons 2017<\/p><\/div>\n

As always, Siabod delivered a fun day out and plenty of clag on the top.<\/p>\n

\"Lisa

Lisa high above Llyn y Foel. \u00a9 Haydn Williams 2017<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Dave

Dave towards the top of the ridge. Also, my finger bottom-left. \u00a9 Haydn Williams 2017<\/p><\/div>\n

I’ve still not found the optimum way off that hill in the cloud.<\/p>\n

\"Wales:

Wales: land of rocks and clouds. Lovely. \u00a9\u00a0Haydn Williams 2017<\/p><\/div>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"Mega-Welsh:

Mega-Welsh: Snowdon and Welsh mountain goat. \u00a9\u00a0Haydn Williams 2017<\/p><\/div>\n

Fortunately, I felt pretty good at Elidir Fawr and continued to do so all the way to Pen y Pass.<\/p>\n

\"I

I made a friend on the way down to Pen y Pass. \u00a9\u00a0Haydn Williams 2017<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Another

Another goat. Also, artistic blurry filter (i.e. dirty lens). \u00a9\u00a0Haydn Williams 2017<\/p><\/div>\n

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<\/a> to low blood sugar.<\/p>\n

\"Back

Back at Crib Goch. \u00a9 Haydn Williams 2017<\/p><\/div>\n

\"With

With Coke this time! \u00a9\u00a0Haydn Williams 2017<\/p><\/div>\n

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!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s now six and a half weeks since Dragon’s Back...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5544,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[62,420,207,435,276,396,309],"class_list":["post-5559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-outdoors","tag-coed-llandegla","tag-fell-running","tag-moel-siabod","tag-mountain-bike","tag-riding","tag-running","tag-snowdonia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}