Pembrokeshire Coast Olympic Distance Triathlon

Saturday 25th June 2016

Broad Haven, Pembrokeshire

Last year I entered us into the Pembrokeshire Coast Olympic Distance Triathlon. This decision was based on the fact that we wanted to go up to the Olympic distance, and we thought it would be nice to do it somewhere a bit more scenic than Staffordshire. The event comprises of a 1.5km sea swim, 43km bike ride and 10.6km run, all starting and finishing in Broad Haven.

We've been working quite hard on our swimming this year and have progressed from only being able to do a few lengths of front crawl at a time to being able to swim over 2km in the pool and 1.6km in a lake. We've also done more bike training than usual (me especially). But although we've done two half marathons this year, we've probably not done as much running training as we should have done.
We were both feeling a bit apprehensive about the event, as it's our first Olympic distance Tri, but thought that we'd probably be okay, albeit near the back of the pack.

We arrived late afternoon on the Friday and stayed at a local campsite called Creampots (we were a bit disappointed to find that we didn't get a pot of cream included in the price, but apart from that the site is fine). We set up George's awning, so we could store the bikes and sort all our kit out, which proved very useful.

The race started at 11am on Saturday. We were up at 7 and had eaten breakfast by 8 (toasted bagels with cream cheese and bacon), and arrived at transition at about 9.30. We had plenty of time to get our stuff set up, figure out where we had to go in and out for the bike and run, and for me to eye up all the other bikes on the racks whilst Claire rolled her eyes at me. The sea looked a bit choppy but it wasn't near enough to see properly so we didn't think much of it.

After the race briefing at 10.30 we were all sent out into the sea to warm up (a.k.a. acclimatise to the cold water and realise just how choppy the sea is). It was at this point that I started thinking that maybe I'd bitten off a bit more than I could chew. But there was no time to start worrying about that, as we were soon called out of the water to assemble on the beach for the start.

After a short delay while the boats struggled to get the buoys we had to swim round in the right place, we were off. It was a mass start, which means that everyone starts at the same time and just rushes into the sea.

It was very hard going, with big waves making it hard to see, and some of them breaking over us. I had to do breast stroke a lot of the time and felt like I was making no progress. I managed to plan my breathing right most of the time but still ended up swallowing loads of sea water. I was relieved to reach the second buoy, which was the furthest away and start swimming back towards transition. When I finally staggered out of the water, I was amazed to see on my watch that I'd finished the swim in only 40 minutes.

When I set off on my bike I felt absolutely exhausted. The swim had taken it out of me. Broad Haven is a nice beach between cliffs, so inevitably the bike ride started with a hill. The ride continued going up and down hills throughout. I had some energy drink and home made rice cakes which perked me up a bit, but I still felt more like napping than cycling. Eventually I cycled down the last hill back into Broad Haven after 1 hr 45 minutes, which was a bit slower than I'd hoped but not by too much.

Then it was out on the run. I had to strap my foot up after twisting my ankle doing Parkrun last weekend, after which my foot swelled up and went black on both sides. The first 3 kilometres were along the coast path on top of the cliffs, which was very pretty and scenic. This meant running back up the hill I'd just cycled down. The path was quite uneven and I was wary of my dodgy foot, so I walked some of the sections. This set a bit of a precedent for me, and by the time I got onto the roads I was struggling mentally, and walk-ran most of the hills (of which there were plenty).

By the time I arrived at the water station at 7km, the sun was blazing, I was too hot and feeling very demotivated. I was even questioning whether I should pull out of my Olympic distance event in a couple of weeks in the Lake District and take up an easier sport. I spent a few minutes at the water station, and set off down hill (at last) at the same time as another lady. I struck up a conversation, and the last few kilometres flew by.

The lady's name was Jan, and she is a member of the Pembrokeshire Tri club. This is the fourth time she'd done the event, and she had also done loads of other events including Ironman and Half Ironman events. She told me that she'd qualified for the Ironman world championship in Kona this year! She's also 62 years old, which she says is how she managed to qualify for Kona as there's not much competition in her age group. We chatted about the swim, and she said that out of all the events she's ever done, today's sea swim was the most difficult. I think she meant it and was not just trying to make me feel better.

By the time we reached the last kilometre I was feeling a lot better about things, and was no longer thinking about pulling out of events or switching to crown green bowls or darts (just as well, as I'm terrible at both of them). We crossed the finish line within a few seconds of each other, polished off a few welsh cakes, and thanked each other for the support in the last few km. Yes, it worked two ways, and I'd actually helped Jan pick up her pace up as well.

The run took me much longer than it should have; 1hr 12 minutes, but I was not too bothered, because of the dodgy foot, and the elation at crossing the finish line.
I finished the whole thing in 3hr 46mins. I'd been hoping for under 3 and a half hours, but was happy with the time for my first Olympic distance event, and am pretty sure I should be able to improve one it!

Claire finished in 4hr 14mins, having experienced the same difficulties as me but with no Jan to spur her on. We were both pretty near the bottom of the finishers, but we'd expected this so weren't bothered.

We went to the winners presentation ceremony, failed to win the raffle or anything else, but we're pleased to see Jan win first place for her age group.

We've spent the rest of the day getting clean and having a barbecue. I think we'll sleep well tonight.

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The Bivvy and the Beast

Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th June 2016

Torridon - North West Scottish Highlands

We had a mammoth Scottish style cooked breakfast in the van on Saturday morning. The sky was perfectly blue and all the mountain tops were clear. We decided that the time had come for our overnighter under the stars away from the van, so packed up all our "rough sleeper" kit and headed off towards Liathach, which is a beast of a mountain incorporating two Munro summits, a scary ridge walk, and a ridiculously steep ascent whichever way you choose to go up.

We parked in Glen Torridon, at the eastern end of the mountain, and set out along the valley "Coire Dubh Mor" at about 11.30am. After the initial shock of the weight of our rucksacks, which contained all our overnight kit, plus food, drink and extra clothes, we made quite good progress. So good in fact that we had to turn back when we realised we'd gone too far and missed our turning. We were supposed to be turning left at a cairn up a "sketchy path", but neither existed, so we made our own way in the direction the route was telling us. Which seemed to head straight for a near vertical mountainside.

We eventually picked up a path which zig zagged its way up the side of the hill to the bottom of a cliff at about 700m.

The route guide then instructed a "brief grade 1 scramble" to breach the cliff and get onto the east ridge. The scramble nearly had us turning back and we only managed it by removing our heavy rucksacks and passing them up to each other.

The next stage was a long slog over very rough, rocky ground to the summit of the first Munro - Spidean Choire Leith. We were so hot by the time we arrived that we had to sit in the shade behind a big rock for 10 minutes to cool off before finally bagging the summit and having lunch and a decent rest whilst admiring the view (photo below is the first part of the summit ridge on the right and Beinn Eighe on the left)

I was quite awestruck by the view of the route ahead, whilst Claire seemed rather dismayed, having convinced herself that the tip of the east ridge was the first Munro and therefore we were on the second and were nearly done. We were actually only about halfway along the summit ridge, with the infamous Pinnacles and of course the second Munro yet to come.

Feeling revitalised after lunch, we made our way down a steep rocky slope to the start of the pinnacles. The only way I had been able to persuade Claire to do this walk at all was by promising that we did not have to do the scramble over the top of the pinnacles and we could use the "lower level path". The pinnacles are a very exposed bumpy ridge about 1km long with a near vertical drop of about 1km on each side. They are a grade 1-2 scramble. The lower level path runs about 10-20 metres below the top of the pinnacles, is about half a metre wide at the most, and has a drop of about 1km on one side. I was not really bothered by the drop but Claire was quite freaked out by it. Fortunately there were no panic attacks or incidents of note, and we arrived safely on the west side of the pinnacles ready to make the final ascent.

The ascent to the second Munro - Mullach an Rathain - was up a gentle slope by comparison, on a wide path not overlooking any scary drops. It was another kilometre to the final summit, where we sat smugly on some rocks and ate some cake.

With both summits in the bag, we thought we'd done the hard bit. Our route down started via a nice gentle looking long gravelly slope heading westward. The gravel turned out to be large rocks close up, but it was still a lot easier going than the way up. The difficulty came when we had to strike off to the north to reach the valley floor below. There was no path, and the ground was quite steep, very rough, and boggy.

We were both disgustingly sweaty and dehydrated by this point, and were kicking ourselves for not drinking more before setting out and "only" bringing 2 litres of water each with us. We finally came across a poxy little stream, with a pool of water about the size of a dinner plate which I somehow managed to dunk my whole head into. We guzzled a load of water from the stream (through our filter) and eventually staggered onto the valley floor by the river at about 8pm, which sounds late, but was perfect timing for setting up camp, doing dinner, drinking toddy, and going to sleep.

We were fully expecting a storm of midges, but there was a nice breeze and no midges in sight. I set the bivvy bags up, whilst Claire prepared our gourmet meals - rehydrated pasta carbonara and rehydrated salmon with dill and potato. The carbonara was by far the best of the two, although that may have been due to over hydrating the salmon dish which turned out more like soup. However, we polished them both off and then sat watching the sun go down behind Beinn Alligan whilst drinking Scottish malt whiskey and gin from hip flasks. And still no midges!

By about 10pm we were starting to feel quite sleepy, so we got ourselves into our bivvy bags for the night, even though it was still broad daylight. For those of you not in the know, bivvy bags are the outer layer - instead of a tent. They are windproof and waterproof and, in my opinion, not dissimilar to body bags. Inside were our sleeping bags on top of thin air mattresses with the latest addition to our kit - inflatable pillows that pack down to the size of a pack of cigarettes, sourced for us specially by Claire's friend Oz from Betws-y-coed.

Needless to say, once snuggled inside my bag, I was wide awake, and it took me ages to nod off, even after reading my kindle for a while. Neither of us slept particularly well, I felt like I woke up at least once an hour. It was a beautiful night though, dry and warm with clear skies all night and the gentle breeze keeping the midges away. At 6am I heard Claire moving around inside her bag and suggested that we may as well get up.

Even at 6am, the sun was already quite high in the sky and it was fairly warm. We made our instant porridge, then left it to "brew" while we packed our camp up. By the time we were packed up the porridge had reached perfect thickness and temperature. We were on the way by about 7am.

We'd originally thought we'd "nip up" Beinn Alligan on the Sunday, before returning to the van through the long valley running to the north of Liathach. But after the previous days exertions, we decided to save that for another day. I was glad we did, as the trek back to the van took us nearly 3 hours as it was much harder going than we expected.

On the way back we stopped to build a cairn where the one to mark the route we took up should have been. No doubt some mountain purist who thinks that all cairns should be banned will soon knock it down again.

We arrived back at the van at about 10am, then made straight for the public shower at Torridon to get clean.

We're feeling pretty pleased with our trip, which was our first solo bivvy. We are glad to have ticked Liathach off our Trail 100 and Munro lists, and although we enjoyed it (some of the time!), I doubt we'll be revisiting it as there are so many other hills to tick off.

We are both looking forward to the comparative luxury of the van tonight and are expecting a good night's sleep. We're both pretty tired and this will probably be the last blog for a while as we'll start the long drive back home tomorrow.

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Tick Trouble

Thursday 2nd and Friday 3rd June 2016

North West Scottish Highlands

We were intending to go up An Teallach on Thursday, which is a Trail 100 hill incorporating 2 Munros. However, as we were about to get our boots on at the start point, Claire noticed that her sunburnt feet were not just red, but all swollen up as well. After a quick discussion we decided that squeezing them into walking boots was probably not a very good idea, so abandoned the walk.
It was already 12 noon by then, a bit late you may think for planning to start a big walk, but it doesn't seem to get dark properly here at all, and even at 10pm it's still daylight, so we'd intended to walk into the evening.

We drove south round the scenic coast road and stopped off at Gruinard Bay, where there was a huge deserted beach. We paddled along the shore and back for an hour, in the hope of the freezing sea water helping to calm Claire's feet down. The only problem was, the water wasn't anywhere near as cold as at the previous day's beach, in fact it was quite pleasant. If the sea hadn't been so choppy then we may even have risked a swim.

On the way back up to the van we spotted two deer on the beach, apparently snacking on dried seaweed. I don't know if they had any prawn toast with it but they seemed to be enjoying it. They were too far away to get any photos.

We had lunch, and then spent ages finding a suitable overnight spot. There seemed to be camper vans and motorhomes everywhere, and we wanted somewhere where there was no room for a second van. We eventually settled on a nice but rather windy spot near a little place called Cove alongside Loch Ewe. In keeping with its name, there were sheep and lambs everywhere.

We had a lazy evening watching downloaded episodes of Marcella on my iPad, linked up to my portable speaker which all worked quite well. I got a bit freaked out when I nipped out for a wee in the night and kept thinking about the murderer in Marcella sneaking up behind me and putting a bag over my head.

The weather forecast for Friday was bad, predicting rain and low cloud. We'd spotted a swimming pool in Poolewe, so we thought we'd go for a swim there in the morning. But we woke up to lovely sunny weather and decided it was too nice to be inside. Claire's feet were still not back to normal so a walk was out of the question, so we decided to go to another beach, this time taking more care of Claire's feet.

We stopped off in a little village on the way, where a made an alarming discovery whilst sitting on the toilet. I had a tick attached to my thigh! Ticks are horrible little bloodsucking insects that normally thrive around sheep and deer. Consequently, there are a lot of them in Scotland as well as other sheepy places like Wales and the Lake District. However, prior to today I had managed to avoid becoming a victim.

We hotfooted it back to George, where Claire gleefully got her special, never used before, tick removing tweezers out of her first aid kit. She managed to get the whole tick out in one piece, and we were just inspecting it on a piece of kitchen roll when it started wandering off! We quickly wrapped it up and put it in the bin with our croissant wrappers and popcorn bags. Fortunately I don't think it had drunk much of my blood as it was still quite small and I didn't feel faint.

You will be pleased to hear that the photo I took was too blurry to bother adding,and I've decided not to post a file image from the internet because they're too horrible.

We were uncertain about what to do, as both my parents have been bitten by ticks in the past, with dad getting quite ill and having to be treated for Lymes disease. I'm sure mum took some precautionary antibiotics when she was bitten. Consequently, I was somewhat paranoid. After some Googling and discussing, we took the recommendation of the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention that we just need to monitor the bite site and go to the doctor if I get a rash or fever over the next few weeks. I fully expect stronger advice from The Parents.

It didn't take us long to get to the beach at Gairloch, and I suggested to Claire that we had another go at sea swimming as it was such a nice day. I talked her out of going to check the water temperature first, and we both put our wetsuits on, with neoprene socks over Claire's sunburnt feet too. Unfortunately we forgot to get any photos so I have found one on the internet instead.

The sea was sparkling and blue with hardly any waves or swell. It was also considerably colder than yesterday. However, having struggled into our wetsuits we were determined to at least go into the water.

After about 10 minutes of acclimatisation (a.k.a. screaming every time a bit of water breached the wetsuit seal), we managed to get some swimming done. Surprisingly, I was much braver than Claire, and managed 1,000m on and off, of proper, head in, front crawl. I had my triathlon goggles on so had a good view under the water, where I spotted a number of big pink jellyfish. Once I'd got used to it, it didn't seem so cold and I feel a lot better about the Pembrokeshire triathlon now. We managed to avoid getting stung by any of the jellyfish (the midges and ticks are enough!) and after about 40 minutes in the water we headed back to the van for lunch.

We stopped by a freshwater loch, washed all the salt water off our swimming stuff, then had lunch. Then I had a 2 hour "nap", and then we found a spot for the night, which is the best of the trip so far. We're right on the sea shore about a mile out of Torridon. There's stunning views across the loch, no room for any other vans, and the breeze is keeping the midges away. And to top it off, there have been two otters frolicking in the sea outside the van!

The forecast for the weekend is excellent and Claire's feet are sufficiently recovered to put her boots back on, so we're hoping to get some hills ticked off.

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Sunburn and showers

Tuesday 31st May and Wednesday 1st June 2016

North West Scottish Highlands

Monday evening was pretty much trouble free, apart from a couple of toilet related problems. As I was having an outdoor wee I spotted the man from the Campervan further along the road flying a drone around. I can only assume that it had a camera attached, and therefore may have filmed, and uploaded my entire toilet trip to YouTube. Claire has also, inexplicably, managed to pull a load of muscles in her hand whilst going to the loo. We have both been a few times since without any similar catastrophes but remain wary.

The weather looked more promising today, as it wasn't raining when we woke up, and we could see most of the mountains. After a trip into Lochinver (to use the safe toilet facilities and pick up some bread rolls) and an early lunch, we set off up Quinag.

Quinag is a fairly small hill by Scottish standards (808m), and we were climbing it because it is on our Trail 100 list. We were going to climb it in the fog by the quick and boring route last year, but decided not to as the words of my cousin Phil were ringing in my ears, saying we had to climb it properly.

So we did it the long way, taking the scenic route via the summit of Spidean Coinich, which involved a lot of up and downs before we reached the true summit of Sail Gharbh.

The clouds had lifted, and the sun was shining so the views were stunning. After some photography choreography with the camera timer and standing on the trig point we started the long walk back out to the van.

We both feel like Quinag was a lot bigger than it was, and are glad to be back in the van for a rest.
We stopped in the same spot as last night, and have now managed a full 5 days of not stopping on a campsite (although we did have the cheaters public shower in Torridon).

Wednesday has been a restful day for us. For the first time of the trip we've woken to sunshine, and all the surrounding hills were clear. We drove up the coast road to an amazing little beach at Achmelvich, which had white sand and sheltered waters. We intended to chill out on the beach for a while and then go for a swim in the sea in our wetsuits in preparation for our sea swim in the Pembrokeshire coast triathlon at the end of June.

After a paddle along the shore we quickly decided that there was going to be no sea swimming. The sea was so cold that it hurt and gave my feet cramp. Even Claire was adamant that we weren't going in, so it must have been cold. I am clinging to the hope that the sea in Pembrokeshire will be much warmer on account of it being 500+ miles further south and a month later in the year. We found a sheltered spot to sit on the beach for a couple of hours before heading off, during which time Claire has somehow managed to get sunburnt on her feet, knees, neck and forehead, and now looks like a grumpy lobster.

After the beach we drove round the scenic coast road and then picked up the main road to the metropolis of Ullapool, where we arrived at about 4 pm. We've been shopping, had showers, done the laundry, been to the pub, and had fish and chips for dinner, and are now in George, eating cheese, surrounded by pants and socks hung up to dry in the pop top.

The weather forecast looks fairly promising for the remainder of our trip, and we are hoping to get a few more hills ticked off our list.

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The Lazy Fell Runners

Sunday 29th May and Monday 30th May 2016

North West Scottish Highlands

We had a very lazy and uneventful day on Sunday. We woke up to rain and mist, and when I ventured outside the van I was greeted by a storm of midges. There had been too many midges for our liking the previous evening, many of which had got into the van, so we packed up and drove off in a huff to a nice spot by the sea to have breakfast.

We'd been planning an overnighter bivvying on the hill on Monday night, but were both feeling rather pessimistic due to the rain and low clouds, the recent midgestorm, and the weather forecast of possible spells of heavy rain and thunderstorms!

By the time we'd driven round to the hills we'd been thinking of climbing the clouds hadn't risen and we'd decided against the bivvy. We popped in to use the public toilets in Torridon, to find to our excitement that there was also a public shower in there! Public showers are few and far between in the UK (we've only ever come across one before, and that was in Dartmouth). This little find, plus all the driving we've been doing has enabled us to delay stopping on a campsite for at least a couple of days, as we are clean and George's battery is still fully charged.

We ended up doing nothing at all for the remainder of the day except driving further north to Assynt which is probably our favourite part of mainland Scotland. The hills are smaller there and we hoped they'd be below the cloud. We spent the night in a quiet spot overlooking the Summer Isles, which was lovely and pretty much midge free, but only gets 8/10 as it was sloping a bit causing the wine glasses to slide across the table and me to get crushed by Claire in the night.

This morning we woke up to low cloud again. I suggested a 6 mile lower level walk to Eas a Chual Aluinn - Britain's highest waterfall, which neither of had ever heard of. During the journey, Claire suggested running it instead of walking, which I foolishly agreed to as we are supposed to be in training for a half marathon. Neither of us paid much attention to the map, assuming that "low level" meant "fairly flat", and I was expecting to be back well within a couple of hours, even after admiring the waterfall for a while.

It was actually 7 miles and took us 2.5 hours, and that doesn't include admiring the waterfall (which didn't look that high really). There turned out to be quite a lot of hills on route (the low level type of hill) and the ground was rough and difficult to run on. We both felt quite pleased with ourselves when we got back though, but it has been agreed that I'm choosing the next running route.

We've found a nice little spot overlooking Loch Assynt to spend the night. It's level, seems pretty midge free and has lovely views across the loch. The cloud has finally lifted from most of the hills and we're hoping it will stay that way for tomorrow.

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