Holyhead Breakwater race 2026

I was excited about the Breakwater race. I had really enjoyed it last year, and not just because I did well and came third. I liked running on the breakwater. And the atmosphere was good.

Closer to this year's race I realised this race boosted my ego in more ways than just giving me a third prize. I had accidentally set the course record for women over 40. And that at 49.6 years old! I don't think that record will stand very long; there are some women in their 30s that are a heck of a lot faster than me, and they won't stay in their 30s forever. But it is my first course record I am aware of, and I am proud of it! Unfortunately, the course record for women over 50 is considerably faster than the record I just set for women in their 40s. So not much of a chance I'll ever manage to touch that.

 

Proud to be on that list! 

Anyway. The 2026 edition was coming. This time, Neil was going to support me. We drove to Holyhead together. Obviously, there were a lot of people there I knew. And I saw Anna, an Eryri star runner, was back. She had had a child only 2 months earlier. Husband and kid were there too, to support (or be quite oblivious to what all of it meant, in the case of the baby). I also managed to squeeze in a toilet visit and a brief warmup.

It would soon be clear that this year would be different from last. There was more wind, and with that there were bigger waves. And these were crashing over the breakwater, especially towards its end. And it has a barrier on the outside, but if you get caught by a wave coming from that direction it might wash you off the other side where there is no such thing. So the organisation had decided to only make us go to the last bend in the structure. They would position a marshal there, that we would have to run around. This would make it a 4 mile race rather than a 5 mile specimen. 

The Breakwater on the day

We lined up for the start, and off we were. I trundled off in my standard fashion. No need to exhaust oneself at the start. But after a while I realised I was not too far from Emma. Last year, she won it. Being close to her surely meant I was doing well! I also saw Tony unusually close. 

The startline

When we got to the breakwater I was still slowly gaining on them. I noticed my speed was very high. I was doing 15 km/h, which is Race the Train speed. But it felt ok, so I didn't slow myself down. 

By that time, the first runners had reached the turnaround point and were coming back the other way. Anna was the woman in the lead! Amazing. She is back with a vengeance. And then I saw a girl I did not recognise. And then there was only Emma. I was in 4th position! If I am, I always try to wrestle my way to the podium. I overtook Tony, and then I overtook Emma. What was going on?

I made the turnaround myself and then got the wind in my face. That explained my speed on the way out. My run back surely would be slower. And I noticed Emma was close behind me. I would have to watch her! She might very well just hang back for a bit and then overtake me at any stage before the finish.

Beside Emma I had another worry: the waves. On the way out I had stayed dry. It looked like on the way back I would not be so lucky. And indeed, I got hit by spray twice. It wasn't dangerous, but it does mean getting a face full of saltwater. Not ideal!

By the time I came off the breakwater, Emma was a reasonable distance behind me. Then in front of me was some bloke. If I would just keep a reasonable speed up now, I would come third. So I tried to do that, and it looked like it was working. Emma didn't approach.

On Beach Road

Almost at the finish

I stormed over the finish and got my medal from Louise's daughter. And I really needed to catch my breath. I was tired! Neil found me quickly and was very proud. I quickly reached for the water bottle I knew he had in the outside compartment of his bag. I had another one of those instances like I had in Deganwy, where I felt like I might throw up if I wouldn't quickly get some water into my system. So I emptied the bottle but then I was fine. Neil was distracted by a very handsome dog. 

I cheered on some runners coming in behind me, and then I went to get my recovery drink. Runners were coming in thick and fast, and we wouldn't have to wait very long for the presentation. They had the same trophies as last year. I like them. They gave the first three men their trophies and then took a picture of all three of them. I hoped they would do the same with the women. Unfortunately, Anna, who had indeed won, had felt the need to go home with the baby. So it was only a picture of silver and bronze lady. A pity! And silver lady was running in the under 18 category. If she wants to keep this going, can you imagine how good she will be in her 20s!

Bronze and silver female and a representative of the sponsor 

It turned out there also was a team prize, for the fastest two men and two women from a club. And Eryri won, with Josh Keogh, Ian Edwards, Anna and me doing the job. We won a box of beer. Anna and Josh don’t drink, so it was all for Ian and me. 

Three quarters of the winning team 

After the race presentation there was the regional presentation. I got a gold medal for being the fastest F50+. And then we could all go home. 

I had done it in 25:50, which made it my fastest race ever, after Race the Train, at 14.4 km/h. Wow! There is still progress in these old legs!

Something happening with the collapsed wall

Readers with a good memory might remember that in February 2022, my neighbours’ wall collapsed. That was a pity! I suppose the big draw of that house was that it had generous decking right above the river. In summer, you can sit there and have a drink while taking in the amazing view. However; without a wall to hold up the decking, that is not a good idea. The decking was cut back to minimalist proportions. 

The neighbours had to have a wrangle with the insurance about who would pay for this. And then they needed to find someone who would actually do something about it. If you do that work, you have to do it right on the riverbank. There is no path going there. 

One day I noticed a cement mixer and some tonne bags by Alan’s (the neighbour) house. I was a bit surprised; would he really have such a big project on? But the day after I saw Gwawr, the other neighbour. She said she finally had found someone to do the work. It had started! That explained the equipment. She hoped the work wouldn’t cause disturbance for me. I had faith it wouldn’t. 

I later had a look and the work is showing progress! I’m glad something is finally being done. I have faith it will soon be as good as it was, or better. It’s not actually anything to do with me but I am clearly emotionally involved! 

Progress! 

Duallt station with Miles

It had been about a year since I had last been on a little adventure with Miles. I was hoping that we could use the summer for another one. And Miles could fit me in.

On a sunny day we met at the café in Tanygrisiau and first had a nice cup of coffee or tea. While we were doing that we discussed what we might do next. Miles had an idea: the Ffestiniog railway comes past, and it famously has an altered route. The cafe is between the railway and the reservoir, and originally, the railway went over what is now the reservoir bottom. In order to gain enough height to make it to this higher route, a loop had to be added. This was largely done by volunteers. Near this rather amazing loop by Duallt station there is a viewpoint. Miles had never been, and suggested we visit it. I thought it was a wonderful idea.

We walked in the hot afternoon to the public footpath, which starts on asphalt, but soon we could veer off and walk on a cute little path. I had done some of that before, but by the time we go to the other side of the reservoir I was in unknown territory. It was beautiful! It was also noteworthy that there, you wouldn't be able to tell we were in a drought. Everything was lush and green! I suppose the mythical bad-weather status of Blaenau has its advantages. 

The reservoir 

Near the reservoir. What drought? 

It looks like this viewpoint is not very widely visited. We only bumped into two other walkers on the way there. And after a while we got to Duallt station. This is basically in the middle of the loop. And it is where you come off the through-route to get to the viewpoint.

Reaching the loop (and the station)

Ghost station

View on where the railway crosses itself

The viewpoint is nice, but I thought the station was more atmospheric. It looks like it is waiting for something. There is a little building on the platform, and a bigger one next to the track. There were some sheep having siesta there. That was it! Nothing stirred. Strange place. And the loop is quite something.

After we had seen both, and I had had a sandwich, we kept going for a bit; that allowed us to make the loop a bit bigger and not just walk the same route on the way back. It was still a very silent and beautiful landscape.

Slate plaque marking the viewpoint 

Viewpoint selfie

We could also catch up. Things had been going on with jobs and kids and partners and parents and pets and houses and cars and whatnot. And we do sometimes send each other a voice message update, but talking in person is different.

When we got back to the lake we walked back around the other side of it. And that brought us back to the car. Time to say goodbye again! It had been really good to catch up. Hopefully another adventure next year! 

More small steps towards tidy house

I would love my house to be tidy. It is just that I would like quite a lot of things, and a lot of them cost time. One has to pick one's battles, and this one isn't always picked. But now that I am taking some annual leave, there is time to make some progress on this. And I already had; some of it to do with repairing the damage caused by the installation of my infrared panels. Some of it to do with the inside of my kitchen cabinets. And some of it to do with their outside. Some of it just on the initiative of Neil.

There is more going on! One of the things I have recently done is empty out my wardrobe, going through everything that was in there, deciding what should not be in there, and put everything that should be back in an orderly fashion. That hadn't happened for a while. It feels good! And I will be ready to either give some clothes to a charity shop, or put them in one of those clothing containers. 

I don't think any of my efforts will ever live up to Neil's exacting standards, but I feel better about every little improvement. Onwards to the next part of the house!

Tidy! At least by my standards. 

Race the (Highland) train

Race the Train is so popular it sells out in minutes. But as I couldn't get in last year, and I had volunteered to marshal, I got a guaranteed spot. That was great! I could now try this iconic race myself. By the way; "Highland" distinguishes this race from a similar race further south.

I'm not sure if it is so popular because the steam train brings you to the start, or because it is downhill practically all the way. It only goes down 50m in total, but you notice. It makes the course very fast. And I don't accept a time on a downhill race as a personal best, but it's still nice run faster than you normally do. 

I arrived in good time and parked by the castle. One of the first people I know I saw there was Llio, the lady I had overtaken in Rhostryfan to take the bronze medal, but who had beat me many times since, in Llanrug and Bethel and Felinheli and Pentir. She is very strong on the short distance. And she had, like me, been running on the track the night before. She had said she was reassured by my presence because that meant she wasn't the only person doing both things in close succession. She had also said she was going to take it easy. That lasted about three seconds. She was flying around the track!

I also saw Richie, who was back from an injury. Sort of. He said he would just calmly jog the route. I wasn't sure if I should believe him.

We went to get our race numbers, and then we had to wait for the train to arrive. That is, except those who chose to jog to the start. A fair number of people do that. It's a good warming up! But I wanted the full experience. How often do you get the opportunity of being brought to the start line by a steam train?

When the train arrived I sat down in an open carriage near the front. That was a mistake. The engine is spewing out all sorts of dirt, and I didn't really mind getting it in my hair and on my skin, but I did mind getting it in my eyes. Wearing sunglasses wasn't good enough. But it was still nice to be dragged through the lovely landscape by this historic train. 

The train bringing us to the start

When we got to Dinas station it was only 12 minutes to the start time. I did a rudimentary warmup. Then we lined up.

Everyone I had been talking to her told me that you need to leg it at the start. The terrain by the station is spacious, but with a little loop you make your way to the other side of the track, and then squeeze onto the bicycle path. There is a bollard there. It is narrow! If you're not somewhere near the front, you will end up in the queue there. It is a bit like the Pentir race I suppose. There are bottle necks there too, and you want to be near the front so there aren't too many people already in there when you get to them. 

When we started, there was indeed a bit of jostle. I found it scary! When people are shoving me from the side I am scared I will sprain a knee. It is so easy to do with my knees. But I took the advice to heart and started faster than I normally would have. Maybe it worked; when I reached the bicycle path there was no queue. 

By then the field stabilised a bit. A bloke in black and a lady in blue came storming passed, but otherwise people had more or less found their place in the pack. Any overtaking will now would be slow. I knew I was going fast, which is tricky so early on, but I decided to try to stick with it. 

I had seen that both my friend Louise, and Richie, were in front of me. I knew I was right not being quite convinced when the latter said he would take it easy! But I wondered if I could still make my way slowly to the front. 5 km is not much, but still enough for some manoeuvering.

Before I got anywhere near either of them I overtook the lady in the blue top. She had gone too fast in the beginning! And I slowly closed in on Louise. When she heard me behind her she said “ah, there you are”. I told her she could still beat me. She didn't think she could. But she was surely giving it a good go. When I overtook she came with me.

The race photographer didn't capture me, so here instead is a picture of Kevin, one of the Track Tuesday trainers, and the race organiser himself

Slowly but steadily we both overtook Richie. I hope he didn't aggravate his injury too much! Ideally, not at all, of course.

When the path had one of its little uphill bits, Louise overtook me. But she couldn't maintain it. I caught up with her again. And then overtook her again. We only had some 250 m to go. 

I tried to squeeze out some acceleration. I was tired, but I still managed. And then I thought there was a lady in black in front of me that was still within reach. I had a go at overtaking her, and I managed! And I could see I had just about managed to come in within 20 minutes. That is fast! This must have been the influence of the slope. I had been hoping for a time of 21 minutes! 

I gave Louise a hug, and then we cheered on other runners coming in. And we found friends who had finished before us. People seemed to generally be happy with how it had gone. Soon I (and supposedly everybody else) got a text message with the official results. I had come in at 19:59! Quite a time. And I had my expected category win, in the implausible F45-54 category. And thanks to my last minute overtaking of Louise and the other lady, I had come in as sixth woman! I was proud of that. WCR runner Huw had come 4th. After 3 Meirionnydd men. 

Not a very good picture of the train finally coming i 

After a while, the presentation happened. In spite of them giving prizes to the top three in every category, they managed to do with quite quickly. Prizes for Louise, Emma, Ian, and Arwel. And loads of other people. And there was even an M85+ category! Won by a 89-year old who had done it in 33:38. Impressive. 

Louise and her daughter and me (I had by then put my shorts back on, as they have pockets)

Then it was time to go home. I couldn't resist taking a picture of the castle against the evening sky. I couldn't resist last year either! It is quite an enticing view. This had been fun! I was hoping I could do it again next year... 

 

Yet another new toy: mini chainsaw

My firewood sawing has become a heck of a lot quicker since I got a mitre saw.  But there is a limit to what it can do. Firstly; it is mounted, and there is only a fixed thickness of wood you can fit underneath. Wood with sticky-outy bits is also a problem. And you can't so infinitely long bits of food, as the platform you put it on is only so wide. And of course you could hold it in position, but you also need hands to work the saw. With relatively short bits of wood that is ok, but if they become long, and thereby heavy and unwieldy, they might make you stray into the slightly risky territories.

Neil has a small battery-powered chainsaw for this purpose. He once bought one, and it had some functionality where it lubricates itself. That functionality didn't work. When he told the manufacturer, they sent him a new one. He still has the old one! And other than that you have to lubricate it by hand, there is nothing wrong with it. So he gave it to me.

The new toy

The garage when I started

I've now tried it! It is very small, but it can do miracles. I got rid of a lot of the firewood from the neighbour's tree, and my own willow. That is unseasoned wood, and it can be a pain to saw by hand. Your saw sticks in it. The chainsaw has enough power to rip itself free.

The bits that were still doable by hand I still did by hand, but it was great to have the chainsaw for the rest. It is small but it made easy work of the bigger trunks. 

There also are the two stringers (the big diagonal bits) of my old outside stairs. Too big for the mitre saw. I finished dealing with one, and I'm not far off dealing with the other. But by then, which took two days, I felt the chainsaw had lost its power. I figured I might have used it so much I had already blunted the chain. I decided to have a break and give it a new chain the test my hypothesis. 

The garage when I took a break (remainder of stringer still on the saw horse)

Changing the chain worked, and I finished the job a day later. It feels really good to have dealt with so much of the firewood that had piled up over the months. Everything that is left now can also be done by the mitre saw. Or by hand. The natural wood will have to rest for a year or two, but these two stair stringers will, in addition to what I still had lying around from last winter, probably get me through the coming one!

Plas Newydd and Baron Hill

Neil was doing another Welsh 3000s training day on the Saturday, so he was quite up for a quieter day on Sunday. And he had a suggestion: there is a locally famous ruined mansion near Beaumaris he wanted to see. I had never been either. And I saw an opportunity: I also wanted to see Plas Newydd (from the inside), inspired by the Madfabulous film. We decided to combine these.

We did Plas Newydd first. I had been on the grounds before; they are lovely. Now we actually went in. None of the film was shot in here, but it was easy to imagine the story playing out in this setting. Glamorous rooms everywhere! And the recent addition: costumes from the film. Just a handful of them, but still very nice to see. I think the costumes department of the film company had a whale of a time with this. 

The house behind a flower border

Glamorous interior

Glamorous Bedroom 

The recreation of the most famous costume for the film

The lawn outside

We had lunch on the lawn, with the lovely views that come with that. And then we headed for Beaumaris. We parked up, hopped into the copse next to the road, and headed in the general direction of the mansion. We immediately found built-up structures. I thought they were parts of landscaped gardens. Lots of rather decorative low walls. When we found some remains of greenhouses my suspicion was confirmed. And we came across the first modest buildings.

After a while we came to sizeable building, covered in big trellises. We figured that must be it. It was quite impressive! We walked in and explored. It was extensive, and sometimes had rather industrial details. There were a bits of engine and line shaft and scoop wheel. And big slate water troughs and features we didn’t recognise. Why does a mansion have that?

It seemed to go on forever. It was much bigger than either of us could have imagined. But after what seemed like forever we saw some highly decorated window frames and an entrance with columns. I was convinced that this was the actual entrance of the mansion. Where we had entered must have been auxiliary buildings. That would explain the machinery. But crikey this was extensive!

Frankly, this part of the mansion was the most impressive. We were both quite chuffed we had finally made it there.

The trellised building we saw first

Unusual structures

This part of the building still had part of a staircase

When we had seen the main mansion he had seen it all. We made our way back and we decided to have a little ice cream stop on the way home. For parking reasons we did that in Menai Bridge and not in Beaumaris. When we were there anyway, we did a little walk around Church Island. Because we could! But then it was time to go home and eat some food. It had been a lovely day!