Finally doing 'the' bike loop, and supporting fellow runners

When I moved to Bethesda, I sort of figured straight away that there was a bike ride that was begging to be explored. The main two valleys here are the Ogwen valley, and the next one along to the south, with Llanberis in it. The whole loop is 50 km, with 730m of ascent. That's decent but quite doable!

I ended up never doing it. The thing is: if it is rubbish weather, I'm not keen on it. If it is nice weather I might want to get off the road; do a nice hike or a nice run on the trails, rather than spending 50 km almost exclusively on asphalt. So the years went by and I still didn't do it.

The International Snowdon race appeared on the horizon. This is really right up the street of the Eryri Harriers. Just not me! Racing down yr Wyddfa scares the shit out of me. But there would be many people there that I know, also from other clubs. Maybe I should go? And I could bike! I decided to go for it.

I made my sandwiches and set off a bit more than two hours before the start. I wanted to be there before it all kicked off so I could socialise a bit with the runners. Google Maps said it would take me 2:12 hours, but they thought I would take a really ludicrous route to the local bicycle path. 

I started off on what is one of my classic running routes. It is not perfectly comfortable for a bike as it is on slate chippings, and some bits are very steep, but that is ok. It's a very beautiful path. But it was nice to reach the asphalt. And it was weird to ride under the clouds again. We hadn't seen those in a while! I suppose I had been in one while marshalling the Siabod race but that had been it for weeks. 

On the running route 

Having reached asphalt 

When I reached Ogwen cottage I got back on the main road. That's alright; at no point did I feel unsafe, even though it was a summer Saturday in quite good weather. Sometimes people drive like nutters there, but everything went well.

It was about 50 minutes to Capel Curig. This was as far as I had ever biked that way. Now I would turn right and head for Pen y Gwrid. 

Shortly after Plas y Brenin I got off the road to take a picture. Two road cyclists overtook me, and they kindly checked if I was ok. A stopping cyclist might mean a cyclist in some sort of distress, but I was just being a tourist. I did appreciate the gesture! 

Yr Wyddfa appears on the horizon 

This part of the road is quite flat, but I had a noteworthy headwind. It took about 25 minutes to get to Pen y Gwrid. There I had to turn right and climb up to Pen y Pass. That I had done before, in the only duathlon I have ever done, and I knew it wasn't strenuous. Then I got to the top and knew that it was now going to be one long downhill to Llanberis. 

Down from Pen y Pass

Bike selfie

When it comes to road safety, this might be the scary bit, as there tend to be low walls on either side of the road. On the A5 you can generally just steer into the verge if you want to avoid some sort of disaster, but here you would have to throw yourself over the wall. That is a bit more committed. But all went well.

The sound of the race hit me abruptly when I came around a corner. I felt close now! And I got to the event terrain. The first person I saw was Arwel. The first of many to ask me if I was running today. No I wasn't! I think the whole club knows I love running uphill, and there is plenty of that going in this race. Maybe some of them are not aware I really don't like running down again. And that was the reason I was only supporting today.

On the event terrain I saw plenty of Harriers. That was nice! I was getting race buzz. And I took some pictures at the start, until one of the official photographers recognised me and said I should join the team. I was a Harrier after all. I obliged.

Club pic

When everyone actually lined up at the start I saw my friend Katie, and shouted at her, but she didn't notice me. She was wearing headphones. I decided to move a bit away from the start so I see the runners a bit more spread out. And I could shout at many of my club mates. And I managed to shout so loudly at Katie that she heard me and realised I was supporting her. Success!

With the race now underway it would take about an hour for anyone to finish. That was fine; it could be a nice lunch break for me. I was hungry by now. But I first wanted to go to the loo. And with the runners gone, they wouldn't be any queues anymore. Unfortunately there was more not there anymore: none of them had paper. I figured I might go to the public loos a bit further up the road, but I bumped into a track runner who said that the next door community centre was open and had loos. That was a good idea. I went there. And then sat down for my lunch. 

While I was sitting there our soon to start PhD student James appeared. It was nice to see him! He said we were bumping into each other at every event, referring to the open day at Bryn Celli Ddu. 

The next people I saw were Tony and Lesley. They were about to queue up for a hot drink, and I joined them. It was nice to see them! And I am generally positive about hot drinks. And while we were in the queue the announcer mention that the first runner was now nearby, so as soon as we had our drinks went to the finish line to cheer them on.

The first three runners were young Italian men. That seems to be a tradition. Good for them! And they were so fast; imagine running from a field in the middle of the town to the top of Snowdon, and back, in one hour and four minutes. That's what the winner did, and it wasn't even a course record. 

There was a bit more geographical variability in the first three ladies; they were from Scotland, England, and Italy respectively, the winner coming in just under 1:17. The first Welsh Runner was a Cybi Strider in 16th position. The fastest Harrier came in 25th, running for Wales. The fastest one in club kit was one of our Welsh Castles Relay runners in 35th position. Our own Ian was 50th. The fastest female Harrier was a 21-year-old. I think her twin sister was running as well! A very strong running family, that. 

I suppose, though, that the fun of supporting is not necessarily cheering on the fastest runners, but the ones you know the best. It was great to see Thursday Night Hill runners and track runners finish. No matter what time they did! 

You could also tell it was a bit of a demanding race; the top of the mountain had been in the clouds for quite some of the day, and I suppose it had been a bit wet there. Quite unlike anywhere else. There were many runners with big smears of mud on their shorts, so they must have wiped out. There were quite a number with bloody knees or elbows. But these were the ones who made it to the finish. There were eight runners who didn't manage. Half of these were Harriers! I hope they're ok. 

I also went to behind the finish to talk to some runners. Harrier Dylan was wondering exasperatedly why on earth one puts oneself through this. Iolo was hanging out with his mum. Katie was happy she had done it under two hours, and handed her soggy race vest to her birthday-having partner. Some of the Harrier women were socialising so hard they hadn't even made it outside the finish area. 

I was aware of my bike ride home, so I didn't wait for absolutely everybody to finish. I put my helmet back on and biked off.

The obvious route home is over Fachwen Road; this is quite a direct route but it is brutally steep in places. This road, however, is currently closed. And that meant I had to do a more gentle, but less scenic, route. I started on the bicycle path, ended up at the end of the lake, and biked back to the main road past The Caban. From there I took the route I normally take my car. None of that was punishingly steep.

Bethesda in sight again

In about 50 minutes I was home. I had done the entire loop! And it hadn't been particularly gruelling. And I had got some race vibes in the middle of the ride. Altogether a good day! And something taken off my wish list…