Thursday 19 July saw me leaving work at lunchtime and heading to the most north western part of Wales...Anglesey, or to be more precise, Holyhead. 320 miles later I arrived, in the rain, at the outdoor centre that would be my home for the next 3 nights. After making myself comfy I headed down to the onsite 'bar' where I was very surprised to enjoy a great home-cooked pasta meal then, after packing my mandatory kit into my backpack, I turned in for the night...at all of 9pm!
Didn't actually get that much sleep : my head was right next to the shared toilet and clearly lots of people were really hydrated as there were quite a few nightly visits! It also poured with rain all night...great!
Up at 6.15 for a shower then headed downstairs to meet the rest of the guys who had accepted the challenge...all 24 of them (surprisingly there was an equal split of male / female so this should be interesting!) and enjoy a full cooked breakfast before the mandatory kit check and safety briefing. It was still raining.
Just after 8.30 we set off in minibuses for the start of today's challenge at Aberffraw. The Anglesey Coast Path isn't as undulating as the Jurassic but there were to be plenty of changes in terrain, starting with sand dunes and a little jaunt along the beach itself. Wasn't long before we were soaked from head to toe as we encountered a huge flood in the first couple of miles and no way was there any opt out option! Most people were getting to know each other and chit chatting, and with that comes the 'follow the leader' mentality with the result that most of us missed a vital turning and got lost...not to worry, we climbed over a couple of barbed wire fences and headed towards the cliffs once again and picked up the coastal path.
Between check points one / two we had to skirt around the now famous airfield of RAF Valley (where Wills is based!)..Kate did invite us in for a bacon sarnie but we politely declined as we had a challenge to complete! At points a few of us were running together, trying to ensure we stayed on the right path so there were plenty of stop / starts to check out the map and ask directions from locals but at other times I would find myself running on my own. Parts of the route were really coastal ie they were under water and I don't believe they ever dried out enough to really call it a footpath - you would need waders!
The weather was still pretty bad : very low cloud and plenty of drizzle but it certainly wasn't cold at all. At one point I tripped over a grassy tussock and fell flat on my face (didn't even have time to put my hand out to break my fall), but luckily only my pride was hurt. I was running with a guy called Andy at the time who apparently was always falling over - he thought it hilarious that someone else was doing that instead and promptly told me to tell his friend Melissa (who was an amazingly fast runner and left the rest of us all for dead each day!) that for once, he wasn't the one dusting himself down....I turned around to thank him, only to find him flat on his face having fallen over exactly the same clump of grass :o) nice one Andy!
Despite the lack of really hilly terrain, the fact that it was so challenging to run on meant that it took so long to complete each day. My Garmin actually ran out of life after I hit 25 miles and I was still a long way from the day's finish line. In the last few miles we kept having to deviate from the road to do a small circular route on the cliff top in order to truly follow the coastal path but again, had to keep your eyes peeled for the Arctic Tern route signs in order that you didn't go the wrong way....by the end of the day a lot of people had totally different distances registering on their watches!
The finish for day one was back at the Outdoor Centre and the last 1/2 mile certainly felt a lot further than it was signed! Melissa finished almost an hour before me and I came in joint 4th! The field were definitely well spread out and by the end of the first day we unfortunately had two casualties..not injured but pulled out as they had got quite drastically lost whilst walking the route, ending up at checkpoint 2 but for day 2 rather than checkpoint 3 for day one....oops!
Definitely more than the expected 26.2 miles : today was confirmed as 30 miles which I had covered in 5:44.
After a lovely welcome cuppa tea and shower, a group of us trekked all of 100m down to the bar for another scrummy meal and review of the day's war stories before I was tucked up in bed well before 9! It's still pouring with rain and blowing a gale out there!
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