Starting on ceiling repair

When the workmen started to put in the second round of panels in August, they had to put the wires somewhere. The logical place is in the ceiling, but that means having to get into it. This involves a lot of making holes in the plasterboard. Some small ones, where they just made a hole and left it; or big ones, where they basically cut a part of the ceiling into bits, and sort of stuck them back in more or less the same position when they were done. Both is not very pretty, and needs to be sorted.

Now that they are done it is up to me to sort out the damage. I have never really dealt with this before! I started out with a little instruction video on YouTube. The obvious place to start! And it spoke of backboards and joint tape and all sorts of things. I was learning.

I have now tentatively started. I ordered some repair patches. Plasterboard normally comes in enormous sheets, but of course there are people who take leftovers and sell them on eBay. Suits me fine.

I just started by tracing the outlines of the holes on paper, so I would be able to transpose that onto the plasterboard, and cut out (sub-)patches of the right shape and size. I also started to think about the backboards. The idea is that if you have a hole in your plasterboard, you make sure that you fix something above the hole, and you stick the repair patch to that. That's the backboard. That might be substantial if the hole is big. With small holes you might not need it; maybe the filler you need for putting it in place will just hold it in position.

I didn’t take chances. I screwed some small pieces of wood into the first small holes, and cut a beam to size for a big hole. I didn’t have screws long enough to put it there, though. I will need to buy these. 

I didn’t get very far. But there is a start! That is always the hardest part. It will take a while, but I have faith I will get there. I don’t know how seamless (or otherwise) it will look in the end, but I’m sure I’ll manage to improve it from what it is now! 

Preparatory artwork

Two small holes in the bedroom

Mini backboards fitted

A big hole that needs a big backboard

Adjusting to my 50+ hair

As hair maintenance I tie bits of string around the base of my dreadlocks. It keeps them together, and it makes new hairs join a dreadlock. You don’t want them to grow freely in between! And the idea is that your maintenance is so good to that when you put a new bit of string in, you take the previous one out. But sometimes I'm a bit late, and I choose to keep the old one in. My hair is not naturally inclined to be configured into dreadlocks, so if I have left it a bit long I might have a little interval of normal hair between the bits of string. Quite a lot of my dreads have more than one bit of string in.

I have traditionally used black thread. Not that my hair is black, but it’s dark enough to make the thread blend into the background. But that is changing.

On New Year's Day, Dean pointed out that I should probably be moving to grey. I figured he had a point. My hair is grey! So the next time I went to buy strong thread, I indeed went for that colour.

I first used up all the black I still had. But then I made the switch. It indeed blends in! And hopefully, one day I will move to white thread. But that is still quite some time away!

Symbols of time moving on

I suppose you can’t see the difference in this pic! But the lowest piece of string is grey…

Holyhead mountain and breakwater

Sometimes scampering off to Anglesey can keep you out of the rain. And there was quite some rain forecast further inland. So Neil and I decided to go to Holy Island. We first had a look at the brickworks, which have been turned into a sort of educational garden. Then we did a walk over the flanks of Holyhead Mountain, to North Stack. And then we walked the breakwater; I had only been on it once, during a race. It was nice to take some time to enjoy it. And we stayed largely dry! Success… 

The brickworks 

Artefacts

Glassless sash window

From the old railroad that took the building materials to the breakwater

View from North Stack to South Stack

View back to land from the far end of the breakwater 

5 year cat anniversary

It’s been five years! Five years since an unsuspecting little cat was carried into my house. She wasn’t even one year old. And now we’ve been together for five entire years. She’s such a fixture of my life. She welcomes me when I get home. She sleeps by my side. We often start the day with some play with the fishing rod toy. The best relaxation is when she is relaxing nearby. I’m sure she has changed in that time. She is not a youngster anymore! But I don’t really see it. She is still sweet but on her own terms, she is still a skilled killer but easily startled, she is still keen to greet everyone at the door but hates tradespeople, never thinks I feed her enough but never tries to steal food. She’s the best cat there is. Someone who I miss and worry about when I travel, but without whom I really don’t want to live if I have that choice! 

End of a utensil

Flasks are important! If you are away from taps and kettles you can still have a hot beverage when you have a flask. Vitally important when hiking and camping. Very important underground. Quite handy in home and office. 

I had some in the Netherlands: first a green one and a silver one. Then the silver one ended up elsewhere and I replaced it with a black one. They came with me on all sorts of hikes. 

Then I moved to Norway. The flasks came with me. Now they served me on kayaking trips and ski tours. Then my life took me to Britain. The flasks had to get used to underground trips. They ended up a bit battered. 

Recently I poured me a cup from the green flask. Something floated in the cup. A piece of plastic! Where did that come from? It turned out to be the bottom of the flask top. The plastic had gone too old and had become brittle, and had now crumbled. You looked straight at the styrofoam providing the insulation. 

I checked if I had another intact top that fit, but I didn’t. I wasn’t happy using it on the road with that top anymore. I’ll have to buy another one. 

It’s just an object! A piece of kit. But it has made do, so many of my adventures comfortable. I figured it deserved a little obituary on my blog! Thank you, green flask. You really deserve retirement now. 

The damaged top

The battered base

In the University Academic Integrity panel

I’ve been the Academic Integrity Officer for the School now for several years. Most cases we can sort within the School. Some cases, however, have to go one level up: especially repeat cases, or cases in particularly heavy-weighing modules, like entire MSc theses. The university then calls together an ad hoc panel to adjudicate on these matters. The people in these panels are drawn from the pool of Directors of Teaching and Learning and Academic Integrity officers of the various Schools. So it was a question of time before I would get the call. 

I got the call now. We were a panel with Peredur the Linguist chairing, a lady from the International Student Office (maybe because the case involved an international student), an observer from Quality Assurance, a representative of the Student Union (there is always one there, unless the student under investigation specified they don’t need one), a University secretary, and me. 

The procedure is that there is an open and a closed session, both on Teams. We start closed; that’s only with the panel, and not the student (defendant) or the AI officer of their School (prosecutor). We established everyone knew what’s going on, and we talked through what questions we wanted to ask. Then we went into the open session. 

This open session was unusual; the student had chosen not to attend, so we couldn’t ask them questions. We could ask the person bringing the case. It wasn’t a long session. 

We then went back to the closed session. And then we decided under what definition we decided this case fell, and what penalty (if any) we had to therefore apply. 

From there on, the secretary would take over. It was her task to communicate the outcome to all relevant parties. 

This was my debut! And only three working days later I would have the second already. You’re never bored if you work with academic integrity! 

Borders League Pensby

It was time for another Borders League race! This one organised by the Pensby running club. That meant going to the far end of the Wirral. That's quite far! I was really hoping someone would be willing to car share with me. I find driving 1.5 hours in order to run for 35 minutes, and then driving back another 1.5 hours, a bit frustrating; especially when I am highly inefficiently only transporting one person in my car, and on the other hand, not getting the advantages of good company. Unfortunately; I was not in luck. They weren't that many of us going, and it is not unusual for people to tag on some additional activity at the end before they go home.

The good news was that I got there without problems, that it was dry when I got there, and that I found a tiny little parking space for my modestly sized car. The bad news was that my legs felt a bit wobbly when I got out of the car. I wondered if that had something to do with my fatigue the day before. But I was going to be ok!

I soon I bumped into other Harriers. Most of them were men! I figured we, as the ladies, were probably going to incur a lot of penalty points for not fielding enough athletes. But so be it.

I did a little warmup run scouted start was. It seemed to have been in a different location from the previous time. And then it was time for the race briefing, and lining up for the start. I was on my new running shoes for the first time. So far they felt good.

I wanted to take it quite easy in the beginning. I clearly wasn't at my best. And I wasn't chasing anything like a category win or something like that; firstly, they don't exist in the Borders League, and secondly, if they did; I wouldn't stand a chance. The field is so strong! And also; we only had three ladies running. That meant 600 penalty points! That basically meant that how fast we would be going to make any difference whatsoever.

We first ran land-inwards, and then turned right onto the main road that had got me there. I had seen it from the car. We weren't on the actual road; we had to run on the cycle path annex pavement on the side. That was basically only one runner wide. And next to it was grass. So if you wanted to overtake anyone, you had to get onto the grass. And I was in hybrid shoes! A lot more grip on muddy grass than proper road shoes. So I did a fair bit of overtaking.

After a while, we turned right again, to head back in the direction of what undoubtedly was an old railway line. That road was in a bad state. I had already seen that on Google Maps. I was being careful! I saw a bloke misstep a bit in one of the potholes, and hurt himself. He did decide to continue, but his face looked pained. I did not want to share his fate.

Then we came off that road, and hit what was the home stretch. I tried to keep my speed up and overtake people. And I was keeping an eye on my watch. To the best of my knowledge, this route was exactly 8 km. I need to last to the end! But then suddenly the finish was there. The route was 150 m shorter than I thought. Not a problem! I suppose I could have had a go at overtaking one more woman if I would have known. But as I said before; it didn't matter.

After I finished I went to get my jumper from one of the Harriers support team, and went to cheer on remaining club members. I was just on time to shout Arwel over the finish. And I shouted at everyone else as well while I was at it. And then it was time for a picture. And then we could go home. Another long drive!

When the results came in I saw I had done it in just under 35 minutes. That's not very fast, but I think this was just not a very fast day for me. The one thing that struck me was that I was only 30 seconds slower than Anna, our star runner. By now she was quite obviously pregnant, and it must be slowing her down! There was only one woman between her and me, and I would've had a chance of outsprinting her. Crikey we were almost consecutive. And I had come in as 29th woman overall; I was happy with that. 

Im not sure what the situation is regarding the next fixture! But first things first: the next race will be Nick Beer. Just after a blood donation! That will be hard…

Club pic

Almost at the finish

Even closer

Leisurely walk to Deganwy Castle

It had been a tiring week. On Monday I had a bit of an intense night with Neil, and on Tuesday I was on the track, in rather awful weather. That makes the track running a bit trying, and the biking home as well. Then on Wednesday we had the underground trip, and on Thursday I was back on the hills. And, of course, I work too. By Friday I was really glad I didn't have anything on in the evening. And then on Saturday I went to Neil. 

We had decided we were going to do something not awfully strenuous, hadn't made up our mind on what exactly. But on the day we decided we were going to walk to Deganwy Castle. I was aware of its existence, and I also know there wasn't an awful load left of it. But that was about all I knew!

We descended the Orme, and walked to Deganwy over the beach. That was very scenic. And we had lunch in a structure that was probably designed exactly for that: it was basically a highly decorative bus stop where there was no bus route. Just benches and a roof. But this is greater Llandudno, so there were pillars. 

On the beach

We crossed through Deganwy and ascended a hill. Immediately, it was very peaceful! And soon we so the first remnants of a stone wall. The castle!

Reaching the remnants of the castle 

View from the castle over the estuary 

The ruins span two hillocks

I read up about it a bit afterwards. On this site, there definitely had been Roman activity, but it is quite possible the strategic location of this volcanic plug had been used by people before that time. There had been an actual castle there from the 7th century. In the 13th century, it had been seriously rebuilt, and later equally seriously destroyed.  And that is why there is so little of it left now. It was actually the Welsh who destroyed it; they didn't want to fall into the hands of the English.

After that we just walked back home. I thought it was enough for the day. When we sat on the sofa for a bit later on, I dozed off on Neil’s shoulder. It is highly unusual for me to sleep during the day! If I do there is something wrong. I am either ill or really exhausted. That week had taken it out of me more than I had even realised. But I had still managed to see remnants of a mediaeval castle I have never seen before!

Update frustrates show runners

I wanted to have a look at how the Thursday Night Hill run had gone. It didn't appear on my Strava. Or even the Garmin app itself. What was that? And then I noticed a notification on my Garmin app. There had been an update, and I might have lost the connection between my watch and my phone in that update. What? That is a bit of a blunder. How can Garmin accidentally disconnect all the Garmin watches from the Garmin app? Don't they know that people with Garmins love looking at the stats? Don't they know that people with Strava love broadcasting what they have been doing? I'm sure they know it. I'm sure there has been a lot of facepalming going on at their headquarters. 

Since I stopped my project Strava, where I put a picture on every activity, I haven't been looking at it as much. I don't look at my commute. I tend not to look too closely at the Thursday Night Hill. But one thing I always look at is the Track Tuesday. I record the laps,  and of course you have an idea of how consistent you are while you're on the track, but I always like having a bit of an overview at the end of it. But now I couldn’t. 

If I'm doing a race, I am highly likely to look at how it went. How did my speed develop throughout the course? And all of that was now lost. Oh no! I tried to reconnect phone and watch just like that, but that didn't work. I really had to take a few minutes by my computer, and do it properly. The notification on the app please provided a link to instructions of how to undo this screw-up. You had to really go far in and properly, properly disconnect them, Bluetooth and all, and then start from scratch. And I admit I am such a technology runner I thought that was important to do.

Two days later I would have a race. It would have been really annoying if I would not have been able to look at that in some app of  sorts! But I'm sorted again…

Tree coming down

In summer, I ended up talking with a neighbour. Our gardens border each other. His garden is higher than mine. And there is a tree standing on the edge; the southern edge of his garden. You can imagine that takes away a lot of light. And he said he wanted to remove it. Was I ok with that? It’s his tree, but inevitably the sawn off bits would end up in my garden. I didn’t mind. And then he said he would let me have the firewood. Even better! 

He said the best time to fell trees is winter. You only have to deal with the trunks and branches; not with leaves. 

He has started now! He’s doing it himself, with a battery-operated chainsaw. And it's a tree with very many trunks, and he is just doing one at a time. And he very kindly chopped up the wood into more or less stove-sized bits. It's great!

He has done two days’ worth of work now, and I have so far quite easily been able to remove the cut bits and put them in the garage I have some old garden wood there; by now it has seasoned long enough so that I can burn it, and thus make way for the new wood. I could imagine that at some point I will struggle to keep up, but I'm sure I'll find a way. And I'm curious to see how the garden feels without that tree towering above it!

The tree in question after the work had just started

Spoils below

Ladies’ trip in Llandudno

There was another ladies’ trip! In the west. And it concerned a mine I hadn’t been to. Exciting! It didn’t seem big, but I was keen to see new ground in good company. So after work I drove to the meeting point, where I already saw some caving-suited ladies. I changed too. 

This mine falls under the responsibility of a local caving club, and there were some members of that club there to show us around. They stood out a bit, because they were men. One of them showed us a map, and told us what to expect. And then we went in. One guy, Rich, stayed with us. There was a good group of us! I didn't know everybody's name.

Most of the mine is basically just an adit. It still has some rails in, but also a fair amount of mud, so your best bet is balancing on these rails. We went down the ladder and did just that. And I noticed Hydrobia and leeches in the adit! I don’t think they intended to be there. But the place is tidal and all sorts can wash in. 

The main adit

Leech and Hydrobia 

It also struck me that whole adit so far was through glacial sediments. I thought it would be bedrock. And we did read bedrock at some point, but I was quite amazed how much of the infrastructure was in loose(ish) material. And that was one point where the ceiling had come down. That was right underneath the road, and you could look at the road surface from below. A bit spooky!

Adit with good stone work

Beautiful Victorian trash

We went into a rather nice bit that went dead, and then went towards the far end of the main adit. We got to a collapse. It was quite muddy. Liz was at the front. Rich, who seemed to know her, ushered her on. She wasn’t keen! That should have been a hint. The rest of us pushed on. Gwyneth ahead, me third. 

In the sticky mud

It got a bit cartoonesque. We slithered over a mound, and ended up in really sticky mud. At every step you risked losing a welly. And Gwyneth vanished into the next collapse. It was a crawling jobby. In the sticky mud! But she didn’t see a way on. Rich insisted it was there. She asked if I wanted to have a look, so I slithered past her and the other lady and did. Nothing! We retreated. 

I suppose Rich had just been playing with us a bit. We now understood Liz. She probably knew! We were very muddy now. And we joined the rest for an explore of the rest of the mine. 

The highlight of the trip was a flooded shaft. Spectacular! And otherwise it was nice to see the whole mine at that level, but nothing could touch that shaft. And there was a little bit of workings in the level below, but we didn't go there as Liz checked it out and said the water was up to her knees, and nobody really fancied that. So after a group picture we headed back to the entrance.

Once out we did another group picture. There was the option of going to the pub afterwards, but I did not take that. It was a tiring week! I went straight home. It wasn't even far; not much more than half an hour. But I needed my sleep.

Surface group pic

It's always nice to be out with the ladies. And to see new ground. I did both! And I just dumped my dirty kit in a big bucket in the conservatory to worry about later. Work called again, and then running, and then more work, so it would be a while before I would be in the position to clean it, and check if I accidentally would have brought any leeches with me in my boots!

Sceptical composting

It's great that people are trying to use less plastic. But not all endeavours are without their own challenges. In the past years, I've been getting an increasing number of bags that looks like they are plastic, but that claim they are compostable. 

If they are the potato starch bags from the WholeFoods Co-op, I shred them and put them in the food bin. But I only just about produce enough food waste to accommodate that. And then there the other bags in which you can buy things like vegetables or clothes or coffee. No way these fit in too! So what to do with them? 

They are compostable, but does that mean you can home-compost them? Or do you need an industrial composter for that? And if you do, doesn’t that render the entire concept futile? Nobody has one of those, and no council collects compostable-in-industrial-composters waste. 

Maybe, though, you can actually compost them just like you would compost garden waste. I have a compost heap; I can at least give it a chance. So I shredded a pile of these bags and mixed them into the weeds and grass clippings that make up my heap. 

The bags

They’re in there now! 

I must admit I am sceptical at how successful this will be! I could easily imagine that the next time I turn this thing over, I will come across all these pieces in pretty much the same shape they have now. But I won’t know until I try. 

So what if it doesn’t work? Maybe I’ll have to pull them out again and burn them. Sounds tedious! But I’m not sure what else to do. And as well. If it doesn’t work, then what to do with future bags like that? I suppose there are two options: bin them or burn them. Binning them will have them slowly decompose in landfill: that creates greenhouse gases like methane, but a half-decent landfill will catch those. Burning them would create CO2, which is a weaker GHG, but it will go straight into the atmosphere. Which is worse? Not sure! 

I suppose this is a long term experiment. Compost isn’t made in a day. I should give it years! But then I’ll know. Although, of course, the materials evolve. I might be in it for the long run! 

Trophy shelf

When I started racing I started getting medals. Initially, I just put them in a box. Last year I put them up. I liked the result! But in Wales you often get a slate coaster instead, and it seemed wrong to not have these there as well. 

In 2024 I won my first traditional trophy, in the Pwllheli 10k. Or rather, two of them, as they gave me both the overall female winner’s and the category prize.  I wasn’t sure where to put them! I settled on the office; I have a narrow shelf there, and that would do the job. And since then I won another one in Llanberis and one in Holyhead. 

It irked me I didn’t have everything together, so a dedicated trophy shelf near the medal rack made sense. The cat added her voice to that; I came back with two trophies from the Twin Piers race. I didn’t have a shelf, and I just temporarily put them on my chest of drawers. And the cat knocked one of them off. The glass tile. It now was glass shards. Bummer!  

I had a shelf I had taken down when I was doing up the house. That fit underneath the medals and next to the bike! So I put it up. And put my trophies on. Including the glued tile. I was chuffed with the results! Later I added all slate coasters. 

As it’s right by my bike, I see the trophies every time I get the bike in the morning or put it back when I get home. And that makes me smile. Success all around! Running trinkets tidily concentrated, and me glad. What’s not to like!

Cat on a diet

The first time I brought my cat to the vet they said she was a bit too heavy! Oh dear. I managed to sort that, and years went by without the vets having comments about her weight. But I had noticed she recently had been having quite a gut. I suspected I had let it slip again. 

Every cat owner knows their cats lie about how hungry they are. Mine does. But you never know when! Sometimes I'm sure she means it. I am sometimes quite hungry! But I must have given in to her cries too much. 

She shouldn’t be more than 4.5 kg. She was 5.6! So that’s it. I got my old letter scales out so I could weigh her food. No more just grabbing a handful of biscuits from the bag. Her wet food stays the same; that comes in little tins that are the size they are. 

She’s not overly chuffed! But also, not putting up a fight. I hope I will get her down to 4.5 kg reasonably soon! And then keep her there. Is much better for her health! 

Diversity for pathogen enthusiasts

Quite out of the blue I was asked if I was willing to give a talk about EDI to an audience of PhD students in a programme dealing with pathogens. I was! But then I had to think about what to talk about. Equity, diversity and inclusivity are rather broad topics altogether. 

I decided to go rather applied. I gave examples of the wide range of EDI. Pointed out in what way they could come into contact with it. Suggested ways in which they could contribute to EDI in their various academic institutions. Pointed them in the direction of where hard data can be found. Such things! I only had half an hour, and I wanted to leave sometime for questions, so that was most of it already.

Luckily, term had not started yet. So I could find time for it in between (and after) my exam marking. I hope it was useful! I got fewer questions than I had hoped. But I tried! 

A figure I showed

 

Living with the panels

So the panels have been installed and payed for! But what are they like? Well! That is mostly the good news. They're largely fab! 

They’re not my entire heating system. The gas boiler keeps the house at some background temperature that is colder than comfortable, but not anywhere as cold as the outside temperature. And I, of course, have my log burners.

What I do is just switch them on in a room where I think I'll be for a while. For instance; days are getting longer so I am having breakfast in my bedroom again, but when I use it as a bedroom I keep it quite cold. For breakfast I like it a bit warmer. So when I go downstairs to make my breakfast, I switch the panels on. And when I come back, the room is nice and warm. And when I'm done with my breakfast I just switch them off again. And I can also get my living room to a nice temperature without having to light the fire.

Do I ever forget to switch them off? Yes, that does happen. But I think I'll get more routined with experience. And I suppose the cat likes it if I forget. 

So in general, I am quite happy! But there is already one bump in the road. Well, maybe two; more about that later. The panels are managed through thermostats, but these can go rogue. The one in the bathroom did that. I had the installer replace it when he was here anyway. And I'm only a few weeks in, but the thermostat in the living room seems also also have gone rogue. But the installer left one spare thermostat, and I'm sure the internet knows how you swap them over. I've seen it done; it is not complicated! Just a bit of a bummer that I already have to think about this.

There is one I'm not happy with. It's at the top of the stairs. That is where all the heat of the house pools! I don't think I'll ever need that one. Furthermore; who is going to linger at the top of the stairs? I had challenged the judgement of the installer when he said that space needed one, but he insisted. I don't think I am forceful enough. I paid for a totally useless panel. Redeeming fact that this one isn't wired in; it just has a plug. I could put it elsewhere, or flog it. I'll think about it. 

I hope in the long run I will stay happy with them. Time will tell!

First Eryri Harriers committee meeting

The committee meetings of the Eryri Harriers are actually open to all club members. In autumn, there had been a call for one. I intended to go! I was curious. But I had stupidly misremembered where it would take place. I had "Bethesda rugby club" in my head, but in reality it was "Bethesda cricket club". So I did not attend that meeting.

Now I am the secretary and I am expected to be there. And I duly turned up! To find one car in the car park, with Mike in it, staring at the shutters of the club. That didn't look good! But soon a bloke appeared who opened the door for us. Phew. 

We could soon start. It was a rather standard meeting! We dealt with the action points from the recent AGM, we decided we needed to plan a meeting for some change we were forced into but which couldn’t make with just the committee, and there were reports from our various officers. We decided we needed a subcommittee for the Welsh Castles Relay. And we had some agenda points requested by various people. 

It was by coincidence an exciting time to have a meeting! Three days after the meeting there would be a new club-organised fell race. I am sure it will go well! 

I sometimes had to ask stuff because I’m new to the game. But I suppose I have to hit the ground running. One of the action points from the AGM was that it was seen as desirable to have a vice-chair. We didn’t have one. Mike nominated me. And I was ok with that so I stood, and that was unanimously accepted. It will be acting vice-chair for now, as we need an AGM to make it proper. But it’s clear I am getting established in the running of this club quite swiftly! 

There were also cups of tea, and Nia had brought cake. We tried to get everything done in 90 minutes but we failed. Too much to discuss! And when we were done I was a bit miffed to see that the roof underneath which I had parked my bike was leaking profusely. I think my bike was only marginally less wet than it would have been if I hadn’t parked it under a roof at all. Oh well. I will look for a better location next time!

One thing we didn’t get around to was deciding on dates for future meetings. So I don’t know when we go again. But I think I will be up to speed by then! 

Small post-race hike

Neil had proposed a hike on the day after the race. We hadn’t decided on where to go. But it looked like the mainland would be cloudy, but the coast sunny. So we didn’t head for the mountains. I had my archeological book in mind, and wondered if Neil had seen Din Lligwy. He said he hadn’t! So that could be a goal. 

We drove there in the sunshine, and walked over the hoarfrost to the chapel and the remains of the village. That rocked his memory; he had been there before! But it’s a lovely site. 

Din Lligwy

The chapel in the sunny distance

We were actually both feeling a bit low in energy. Me probably because hanging around in the cold by the finish line the day before had done me no good. Neil wasn’t quite sure about why he was a bit sluggish. So we were ok with no big hike!

We walked to the coastal path and followed that south. It was beautiful and sunny! But still cold. The sand of Traeth Llugwy was frozen. We came past something I thought was an old quarry. And I figured it was the same stratigraphic level as Bishop’s Quarry on the Orme. Later we saw some beautiful sandstones underneath the limestones. Some good channels there! 

The suspected quarry

And the suspected channels

 

Further on we had a chat with some people at the Coastwatch post. They spoke of a seal on a nearby beach. We hoped it was ok. And we sat on a rock for lunch. It was so relaxed Neil even dozed off a bit. 

When we got to the next beach, we saw a chap with binoculars. We should have recognised that for what it was: a Coastwatch man we had seen at their post, checking on the seal, but he had to tell us that. Oops. The seal seemed fine! Just dozing in the sun. 

Go full page view for the seal

From there we just walked back to the car. Enough excitement for a day! And only when we were back at my place did it become clear just how under the weather we were. I was glad we hadn’t tried anything strenuous! 

Twin Piers race

I started the racing year with a race I hadn't done before, just like last year. This time the novelty in the calendar was the Twin Piers race, from Llandudno to Colwyn Bay. A rather flat course. Not the most exciting, but a nice one to start off with!

Because it is a one-way race, you have to think about how to get from the finish to the start. The race organisation mentioned there was transport; I assumed that would be with coaches, but it didn't provide detailed information. Would you have to be transported with only everything you would have on you in the race? Or was there bag transport? If everyone would show up suddenly by coach, would that not overwhelm the provided portaloos? I decided to sort out my own transport. I drove to the finish with my bike in the back. That way I could also recce the course. I had not done that on foot! And I found Emma, the fast Dutch lady who was picking up her race number, but would then drive to the start. She said she would run back to her car at the end. Perhaps, if my car stayed there, could she put a jacket in my car? Of course she could! I had one in there myself as well.

I got a good idea of the route, and especially the hill in the middle. And I had decided to scout out the public toilets in town. My least favourite part of the race is always queueing for the toilets by the start! But if you have a bike, you might as well just go a bit further away and have some public toilets all for yourself. Unfortunately, you get nothing for nothing in Llandudno. Both sets of public toilets I scouted out required a 50p coin for access. I did not carry any on me. I might have to rely on the loos by the start anyway.

The start confused me a bit. Normally, that is quite some infrastructure. But I suppose this time, all the infrastructure was at the end, and at the start there was basically only a bloke with a microphone and a big sign saying "Start" (which I initially entirely failed to spot). And there were portaloos. At least the coaches hadn't arrived yet, so there was no queue. I took advantage of that.

It was beautiful and sunny! I decided to strip down to my racing tire quite quickly. I stuffed my excess clothing in my bicycle bag. I had faith it would be safe there. And I was hoping to see a lot more Eryri Harriers. I saw fewer than expected! But I saw some fellow track runners. That was nice too.

Sunny by the pier! 

After a while I found the rest of the club, and we posed for a club picture. And then it was about time to start. I made sure to be somewhere at the front, but as soon as the whistle went a lot of people came storming past. This included two Cybi Striders of note: the first was my friend Louise, who had said she was going to try to stick with me as long as she could by way of pacing, which clearly went out of the window in the first second. The second was Richie, who is more or less as fast as me, so it is always anybody's guess who is going to win. In the last five races he had beaten me three times, so I really wanted to beat him again!

Club pic

I knew I would quite have liked to run a personal best, but then I would have to run from the start at a 4:15 pace. And I could immediately feel that that was not going to happen. Sometimes you have your day and sometimes you don't. This day I didn't. But I made sure I didn't stray too far away from Louise and Richie. 

After a kilometre or two I caught up with Louise. She admitted he had set off too fast again! A bit like in the Breakwater race. We ran together for a little bit, but then I wanted to go and chase Richie. I figured I could take him on this time; he had a bit of a niggle, and I was fine. That put me at an advantage! Am I overtook him before we hit 3 km.

I was alright on the uphill; I normally am. And the downhill wasn't steep at all. That suited me fine! But by about 5 km I was starting to feel the strain. I knew a personal best wasn't going to happen, but another thing I would quite like to get was a category win. My first race after my 50th birthday! And I had no idea, of course, who was in front of me, but I figured I couldn't relent, in order to maximise my chances of getting it. I plodded on, counting the kilometres away. 

In the last few kilometres, the field was quite spread out, so I didn't think any 50+ lady was going to jump out of nowhere and overtake me. I just kept up my speed and hoped for the best! And I was properly, properly out of breath when I finished. Immediately I received a text. The timing software gave me my time! And could even tell me the results so far. So I immediately knew that indeed, I was there fastest woman over 50! I was happy with that. My time was 43:47; 1:10 away from a PB. And quite unlike my previous 50+ win (even though I was 49) I wouldn’t have won in the previous age category. Oh well! And there would be other chances to try to beat my PB.

Emma had already finished, of course, Louise and Richie weren't far behind me. We did the usual after race chat. How did it go? Were we happy with our time? What was our ranking? And I got to my car so both me and Emma could put a jacket on. It was cold!

There was a bit of faffing, and then the ceremony started. I knew I would get a trophy, and there were several other Eryri Harriers who did. Excellent! And one thing I didn't see coming; this race also gave a price for the fastest theme. I wondered if you would have had to register as a team for that, but it turned out you don't. But they just do it take the fastest for men and the fastest for women from any club that has entered at least four of each, and then figure out which were on average the fastest. It was us! And I was the third fastest woman. I was proud of that!

Me, Emma and Louise by the finish

Getting my trophy. Pic by Louise

6 out of the 8 winning team members

I quite like that our team of 8 was almost entirely above 40. Only one of the women was running in the 35-40 category. And then we had 4 people in 40-45, 2 in 50-55, and 1 in the 55-60 category! So we were a bunch of superfast middle-aged people.

After the ceremony from the organisers, there was a second ceremony by Welsh Athletics, as this race was in the North Welsh championships. But because it was cold, quite some people decided to not wait for that. The crowd got smaller and smaller when they went through the categories! Because I had won outright in my category, I also got a medal from them. And with my finishing medal, that brought my loot to four trophies! And my category win got me a nice tile with an old picture of the Colwyn Bay pier.

Now it was really time to go. So I drove back to the start, found the parking place near where my bicycle was parked, and loaded it up. Time to go home! The racing year 2026 had commenced!

Loot!