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!

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…

Next kitchen cabinet gets makeover

I felt really good about having stripped and painted two of my kitchen cabinet doors, so my hands were itching to do it again. And the obvious next target would be the kitchen cabinet above the oven. Because of the heat of the oven, its veneer had suffered a bit. But my thinking had already evolved a bit from the initial attempt.

The first difference was the yellow paint. I had initially used some leftover paint I had used on the bathroom wall, and some wall/ceiling in the kitchen. But it was probably a good idea to use paint a bit more suited to this particular application. A bit more durable, and more easy to clean. I could still use the same colour.

The second difference was how I would go about it. I had painted the first two doors in situ. I had been a bit nervous about being able to hang them back afterwards. But Neil recommended I try it anyway. He figured it would be fine.

The third difference was the handle. I don't like the handles the kitchen came with. When I was at it anyway, I might just as well change them. I had a little Google and bought a few hand-wrought replacements. They were not the same size; I could only use one of the drill holes. I would have to drill an additional one, and fill up the redundant one. But that shouldn't be too much work.

With that in mind, my first step was to go back to B&Q, to have some paint mixed for the purpose. The next step was to take the cabinet out; I put it down in the conservatory. And this time I applied again two layers of primer, and three layers of white paint, but only one layer of the yellow paint. That would not be enough, but I figured I would wait with the second layer until I would replace the handle. Hopefully, painting the second coat over the filled-up hole would make that invisible.

My plan is to also put a layer of this new paint over the yellow paint of the first cabinets, but again I am going to wait until after I have fitted the new handles. I only bought three; I will see how I like them. I am painfully aware of the contrast between hand-wrought iron and MDF. They would undoubtedly look better on old oak! But it might work. I will have to see them fitted to know. If I am happy with my choice I will buy them for the remainder of the doors and drawers as well. 

If you don't stand too close to this last door you don't notice it is missing a coat of paint. It is helping making the kitchen look a lot better than it used to! I am quite excited about this whole project! Watch this space to see it develop...

Progress

No trace of damaged water pipe anymore

It has taken a long time, but the work is finished! I had already blogged about the electrician drilling into a water pipe, after which the whole pipe had to be extracted from the wall and replaced. That obviously left a big gaping hole in my wall. And the first step of doing something about that was packing it with wood. Then the work stalled. Then I filled the remaining depression up with filler. The next step was to sand the filler down, but it turned out the sandpaper I had wasn't up to it. But by now I have bought new (coarser) sandpaper, sanded it all down, touched up the paint, and then put the light switch back. And now you can't tell anymore that an emergency took place! You can still see a bit of a scar in the wall, but this wall is full of scars. It's just the nature of the wall. I'm happy with the result!

Watching football

Yes you read that correctly. I have been watching football. Why? I am not interested in football. I am also in a relationship with a man who is not interested in football. But. He actually is marginally interested in football, and he figured that now that his national team was in the World Cup semi-final, this would be the moment to watch. He also says that by the time it gets so spectacular that he watches again, England loses.

After our walk we went back to Llandudno and had some pasta. And then it was time to watch the game. I watched the first few minutes, and then I sneaked away to phone my mum. I was perfectly comfortable not watching everything. And when I came back, there still were no goals.

I am hardly a football expert, but the game struck me as not particularly pleasant to watch. It looked tense on the field. The players didn't look like they were enjoying any of it. It was a bit scrappy.

I wasn't too focussed on the game; I had a lot of water to drink, and I had Neil to my left and his cat to my right, so enough other things to deal with. But I was involved enough in the game to get quite some admiration for the English goalkeeper. If I remember correctly, the Argentinian goalkeeper didn't have an awful lot to do. The English one did! And I was very impressed with how he kept almost everything out. But almost everything is, of course, but not necessarily good enough to win a game. And they didn't.

When it finished, Neil wasn't overly disappointed. But he hadn't liked how the Argentinian had played, and he spontaneously became a Spain fan. And he had another data point in line with his expectation of England losing when he watches. In case you wonder: no he didn't watch the game against France. 

I remember having watched football when I was in Norway. That gives me an approximately once in 20 years frequency in which I watch football games. I'm sorted again for 20 years! Suits me fine…