Pwllheli 10k 2026

When I saw this race advertised I was really keen to register. Even more than average. Pwllheli was the place I had run my first ever gold medal. Also in a 10k. That gave me strong positive associations. 

I also knew it would probably be a very flat course. Maybe an opportunity for a 10k PB? Even though I had given blood less than two weeks earlier? And also, it would be the day before me going to the Netherlands. That meant it would be a good day to run myself empty and be still knackered the day after. I would only have to sit in a train all day! 

The race I had done (and won) in 2024 had not been run since. This race had a different (first time) organising team. And a different route. But the same HQ. 

I drove down and parked without issues. But it was a lot hotter than I had expected on the basis of the forecast. Not ideal! But not a big problem. I was glad I had brought my sun visor. 

I was feeling the race jitters. Quite unlike in Caernarfon, two weeks prior. I made sure to go to the loo, do my breathing warmup, do a ‘normal’ warmup, and drink enough. And I socialised with some people I knew, especially three lads from the track. There were also a few Eryri Harriers. 

At some point we lined up. And we were off! And the first kilometre, it is generally quite chaotic. The field is dense and some people struggle to find a sustainable pace. I tried to keep an eye on any women in front of me. Soon, I figured there were only two. Interesting! Maybe I could get a podium place again. Maybe even gold. 

Race buzz at HQ

Lining up at the start. Notice Steffan on the front row.

Pictures of the actual race to follow soon! 

Fairly soon I overtook one of them. And I made sure to keep an eye on the other, who was in a Caerphilly Runners top. Very slowly I gained ground on her. And about 3 km in I overtook her. 

Was I on track for a PB? Questionable! But not impossible.  

I tried to keep a good but feasible speed up. And I sometimes looked behind me. It looked like the Caerphilly woman couldn’t keep up. Good! 

I was feeling the strain. Some 6 km in I noticed I was starting to wheeze. A bad sign! I really tried to calm my breathing. And tried to relax, and use some nearby blokes as pacers. It sort of worked. 

Then I hit the last km. I was knackered! I just couldn’t keep my speed up. I did the best I could, and it seemed enough to not let Caerphilly lady come near. I would have gold! Would there be a ribbon? Last time there hadn’t been a ribbon, but maybe this time would be different. I would love a ribbon! 

When I got so close I could see the finish, I saw no ribbon. A bit of a disappointment! I also noticed I was about to run pretty much the same time as I had done in Caernarfon. I gave it a last desperate push to try to be faster than then. And then I finished. 

I was stupidly out of breath. Luckily I found a wheely bin to lean on while panting like crazy. And I drank some water. 

Then I saw Caerphilly lady finish, about 30 seconds after I had come in. And, almost immediately after, bronze lady. Caerphilly lady looked like she was about to throw up. I know that feeling! For me, water helps. So I grabbed a bottle and handed it to her. And we congratulated each other. 

I then socialised a bit with other finishers, like the three track lads who had all managed to run their target time. The bloke who normally paces their group, Niall, had paced them here too. Successfully! And he, unlike the others, had managed a sprint finish, which made him come in a bit before the other two. 

I had my recovery drink and some more water, and then cheered on some other runners. And checked the results: I had done 43:18, so marginally faster than in Caernarfon, but still some 40 seconds slower than my PB. And I waited for the presentation. I couldn’t miss that! 

The presentation was decidedly weird. There were only three age categories! <20, open, >60. Of the 88 women running, 84 were in the open category. And the prizes were cash. Steffan took the male silver. As the female winner I got £100. I will obviously find a destination for that, but to be honest, I would have preferred it if they would just have used the money to buy gold, silver, bronze, and category winner medals, and handed out more of them. And maybe added some chocolate or something. You can get a medal for as little as a quid (undoubtedly a bit more if it states the race and the category) so they could easily have afforded that if they hadn’t spent £360 on cash prizes for the male and female top three. And maybe a ribbon? 

At home I saw that Garmin had been of the opinion I had spent 88% of the race in zone 5. Maybe a new record after all? Just not speed? 

We will see if these organisers will stage this race again next year. If so, I would like to do it again! And maybe they will be more conventional a next time around, with more age categories and more symbolic prizes. And for now I will just do a bit of gloating! 

Breathing book finished

I thought I would fly through this book! I bought it in March, at the Eryri Harriers presentation night. And it’s accessibly written. But there is a but. As it is about improving your breathing in order to improvey your running, it has practical components. It contains a fair number of tests and exercises. Tests as in: how flexible are your hips? How flaring are your ribs? What is the maximum speed you can run at while breathing through your nose? And exercises to loosen up your ribs, align your spine and all that comes with it, and train your CO2 tolerance. 

Firstly; if you read it in bed, you regularly have to stop as you’re not in the position to do these tests and exercises. And sometimes, when you’re reading elsewhere, you might be a bit taken aback by instructions to do some exercises from chapter X, then do an exercise from the current chapter, and then do the exercises from chapter X again to see how much of a difference that makes. 

I’ve finished it now, though. And made a little summary in my phone. I can now put it all into practice! And I started doing that right after the presentation night, slowing my breathing during runs, which I really liked and which probably improved my performance. And I started nose breathing on my commute. But now I can put the entire book into practice. 

I already did a warm-up for my ribs before the Trentham race. Did that work? No idea! But I ran a good time. 

So what now? I should keep going with the nose breathing and the breathing warmups. And try to slot in some CO2 tolerance exercises, like hill sprints while holding my breath. And just hope I manage to book steady progress with it. 

I haven’t set a new distance PB since the (easy) one in March. It suggests I have so far not quite made as much progress as I hoped. But if I keep going, maybe that will change! And I don’t think there are any negative side effects to learning to breathe more efficiently…

Preparing for cat sitters

I’m travelling again, and that means a cat sitter. And a cat sitter means getting the house ready. And ready means clean and tidy. 

This fits perfectly with my recent initiatives, partially inspired by Neil, to get the house tidier. It is super dull to be cleaning so much, but maybe it is worth it to put some good effort in. It will be easier to maintain it at a higher standard if beforehand I've done one big push to reset that standard. I hope it will work out this way!

Clean!

I also know that no matter how much effort I put in, it will never be impeccable. I suppose the house doesn't really lend itself to that. With its way too many rough edges where dust can pile up, and too much access for spiders and slugs and whatnot, and because it is subdivided into so many little rooms, there are so many surfaces. But I'll see what I can do! At least there is an end to this. As soon as I go to bed the night before I travel, that's it. The next morning I have an early train, so no more cleaning then.

House-sitters tend to leave the house clean as well, so I can enjoy the fruits of my (and their) work when I come back!

Making progress on my application

When I was done with my rubrics I could, or should I say, ran out of excuses not to, get on with my application for Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Last year I had made a good start, after only having a good look at the process in 2023, but a start is not enough. The whole thing needs finishing.

I struggled to get going. You have to write about how fab you are! And that’s not something that comes naturally to me. But the application contains two case studies, and these have to be backed up by literature. And when I got to the point where I needed to consult said literature, I perked up. And I finally hit my stride. Now I actually enjoy it! And there is still a lot  (a LOT!) of work to be done, but at least I am now making progress…

Jacko has his world record!

Back in late May I went for a little run with Jacko, The breathing coach who had done a session for the Eryri Harriers, and who is also the brother of one of my former colleagues. He had just started his world record attempt at doing the most consecutive ultramarathons for a man. He wanted to do 80 km every day for 100 days. It didn't quite work out that way. He got injured after some two weeks, and had to tone it down to 50 km. That still counts as ultramarathons! So that would still result in a world record, if he would manage to keep it up for more than 80 days. He only aimed for 100 because he could, I suppose.

The most consecutive ultramarathons for a person, by the way, is in the hands of a lady called Candice Burt, who did 200. He won't go anywhere near that. 

He has now reached that threshold of 80 consecutive ultramarathons, which until then had been the male world record. And that got some publicity. Neil saw an item about it on ITV. I couldn't find anything on mainstream media, but hey, if he reached Neil on TV he must have reached more. That's great! He is doing it all for two brain injury charities, and with the breaking of the record he got national attention, and hopefully, that attention will lead to more donations. He had tried to raise a million, but before reaching the world record stage I think he had only raised some £20,000.

He is now doing the last few weeks. I’m sure he’ll get to 100 ultramarathons. What crazy challenge will he think of next? I don’t think he will be going into a 9 to 5, with some sensible running on the side, now… 

From Facebook

In early September, he will be back in North Wales to finish his 100 days. It will be triumphant! And when I ran with him, he said that the world record was only a bonus and the important thing was basically challenging himself, and raising money for charity, but I still think the world record matters. The amount of donations coming in after he reached it will be the judge of that, I suppose! 

Upcoming conference in Bangor being with the times

In September, the Challenger conference will take place in Bangor. I will be involved in that; there will be field excursions, and I'm leading one of them. But this post is about something else.

I got an email from Tom, who is in charge of the whole thing, and he said that as is standard at the conference, people will be wearing badges with their name and affiliation. You normally get a card holder and a card at the beginning of the conference, generally on a lanyard. Some people have bucket-loads of these in their office, from all the conferences they have been to. And Tom and the rest of the organisation thought they could use that to the benefit of the environment. Why not reuse them? So he put out a call to the whole school to ask if people would be willing to donate their old badge holders. I think that is an amazing idea! I rummaged in my stuff and unearthed two of them. Not many, but two that don't have to be made from virgin plastic! Or even recycled plastic. 

I hope they manage to get enough of these for the whole conference. I think this is the future! Reduce, reuse, recycle. And I got some satisfaction from not having thrown these away, and even knowing where I had put them. This is the sort of thing I hope will happen if I save something like that!

First own topic

It took a few months, but I have received the first student proposal for a self-designed dissertation topic! I told the students in May that they could take this opportunity. Some tumbleweed followed. But now I have had the first student give it a go. It is possible that this is the beginning of a surge. Inevitably, this surge will be at its peak just before the deadline. It tends to be like that. Not everyone will succeed. 
This first student didn't have their proposal approved straight away. I had some questions that needed answering about the exact research question, and the data. But there is plenty of time to sort that out.
I hope this year will have a lovely balance between number of students that will get their own topic over the line, the amount of time I have to spend on it, and the amount of satisfaction the students get from this. One way to find out!

There was sea ice in this proposal