Pentir fun run

When I visited the Eryri Harriers Facebook page, why I called the advertisement for a race. It was really soon, and not very far away! I decided to register for it. It was a short 4.5 kilometre race on the Wednesday night in Pentir. That is not very far from my commute. So after thinking logistics a bit, I decided I would indeed just bike to work with my running kit in an extra pannier bag, and on the way back just ride to registration, run the race, get back onto my bike, and get home. Sounded like a good day!

I changed in my office, and decided to just write in in my running kit with a running jacket. I had a rain jacket with me as well, but I figured that would be too hot. It was raining, though, but I was quite resigned to that.

Biking to Pentir went well, and because I was on bike I could park right at registration. I got my race number and my chip (in this race, these were two different things), had last sip of water (even though it came for free out of the sky), and then ditched the jacket and went to the start. This was several hundred meters away.

There was the usual faffing by the start, but in the end the organiser got everyone's attention. He told us about that the road wasn't closed, and that on a wet day like this, the off-road parts of the route would be slippery. And he told us that someone had parked their car in front of the finish, so they would move it a little bit, and we would have to run around the nose of the car. And I asked the runner next to me that it was clear where the finish was, but where was the start? And that was when the organiser said ‘on your marks, get, set, go!’ That told me that wherever it was we were standing then, was actually the start. Oh well. We were off!

We started on the road, but after not which time we turned off into a field. That was quite grassy and quite firm. Into a bottleneck: There was a kissing gate that couldn't deal with the influx of runners. But it helps spread out the field. And this was the only kissing that heads queue for awhile. With the others, there were never more than two people in front of you, and they all were quite quick getting through.

Near the start

I recognised the area from when it was lockdown! Then I had extensively explored all the public footpaths in the area, so I had done all of these as well. It was a beautiful route. And some of it indeed was muddy and slippery. I was careful on those bits!

The way back had some paths that were too narrow to overtake people, so then I had a bit of a breather. But then we came back into the grassy field, and I overtook the lady in front of me. And when I got back on the road I saw one man in front of me I wanted to overtake as well. I did! And then I finished. I had no idea how much time it had taken me, but I was happy with my performance. I had given it some welly.

Almost back at the road

At the finish that was water and cake. I didn't need any encouragement! I picked a lovely piece and ate that, while chatting to other finishers.

Post-finish cake! 

One lady approached me to ask if maybe I wanted to do the trail 10k on Sunday. I told her I was already registered. That was a bit of a pity, as one of her friends was registered, but couldn't run, and was hoping to find someone to transfer her registration to. I wasn't it! But I said I could ask around. But then we needed to be able to get in touch with each other for that to work. My hands and my phone were too wet to exchange details that way, but I asked if a policeman who was keeping an eye on things if he happened to have a pen on him, and he did. I had the lady write her name and phone number on my race number, and said I would be in touch.

Then I decided had lingered enough. I went back to registration. The organiser had said that there would be no prize ceremony for reasons of the weather, so he said that there would be a monitor with results at registration, and if you saw you had won a prize you could just pick it up. So I had a look! And I saw I had come first in my category. That was good enough for a prize. And they just randomly allocated the prizes. I was happy to see mine was a box of jelly babies. Firstly, these are good running food; secondly, there were also several bottles on the table, and I didn't fancy having to bike these home. So this was a good result! I got back into my wet jacket and was off.

I had to bike back on a relatively large road, as there were no alternatives that wouldn’t add significantly to my travel time, but I still only was on that road for a few minutes before I could turn off onto a smaller road. When I got home I was quite drenched! I was glad to peel off my soaking kit and have a shower. And it had to be a rigourous one; it took some force to remove all the mud from my legs.

The weather hadn't been ideal, but it had been really nice to just do a little race in the middle of my commute! And get an ego boost and jelly babies to top that off. And it was a nice preparation for the upcoming race that Sunday! I hope that will be even better…