⛰️ 𝗠𝗶𝗻𝗶 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗮𝗺𝗽 ⛰️

Had a fantastic time in Snowdonia this weekend with Billy Cochrane, it’s an absolute mission to get to but the perfect training ground for ultra and mountain races.

A training camp allows you to fully focus on training. Eat, sleep, be out for hours, test out the kit, practice nutrition, pacing, navigation, climbing mountains, the psychological training of being out there for 8 hours straight, doing hard things and getting specific for your event.

For us it’s race across Scotland 215, now it’s not exactly mountainous but it is hilly and boggy which we experienced for sure.

After an 8-hour drive, we got to our bunk house in Llanberis arriving at 10:30 pm grabbed our packs which fully loaded were around 5kg and headed straight out. I’m normally fast asleep by now so it’s such good training to run when you don’t usually especially as we are going to be going through 3 nights at RAS

We chose an out-and-back on the Llanberis path to the summit of Snowdon. This was great training after being up all day, it was mega windy, driving rain, bloody freezing and visibility down to just a couple of meters. But we pushed hard and got up and down the 10 miles in 2:50 and got in just after 2 am.

3 hours later we were up and got the Sherpa bus up to Pen y Pass and ascended via the PYG track, I aimed to stay in zone 2 knowing we had a long day ahead, I wanted to stay as aerobic as possible to save that limited glycogen and not create lots of fatigue.

This went well and although chilly at the top managed to stay in just a tee. It was pretty busy the path as usual but went well and managed HR okay, We got a good jog on down the minors path which is quite runnable once off the scramble at the top.

2:50 and 7.5 miles

We stopped for 20 minutes at Pen Y Pass cafe for a cheese and onion slice and an oasis. I did take my mini stove and a dehydrated meal but decided to go for this to save time.

From here we headed up the miners path which had more grass and bog than Rocky Mountain path and on the top is like a boggy flat area we then veered right to summit Tryfan on the south route this was a real scramble and took 62 minutes to cover one mile up and down.

Once off here we had the option of taking the scree path next to bristly ridge, I’m pretty risk averse these days so it wasn’t an option 😆 we took the longer route on the Cambrian way across the Glyders up here is such a beautiful a mind-blowing place as you will see from the pictures and we were so lucky with the weather.

Off Glyder Fawr we descended the Cambrian way dropping 650 metres in under two hours to Pen y pass. This was very steep, slippery, and boggy but quite enjoyable rather than going back down the miners.

This weekend was a great time to practice nutrition, I’m always a whole food person but I want to use some sports products as another choice at Scotland 215 so practised with Clif Bloks 3 different flavours and Skratch energy chews I feel they helped and a good option as part of my fuelling strategy. For fluids, I used mountain fuel and sos electrolytes and took a salt tab every hour or so.

I’ve done a lot of these trails already during the Snowdonia 50 and 100 miler but was good to summit Tryfan as before went around the summit on Heather terrace experienced going down the Cambrian way back to Pen Y pass and the Llanberis path the longest of the routes up but considered the easiest.

If you have any questions about all things running feel free to get in touch 👌🏻

www.bayruncoaching.co.uk