Betws-y-Coed and the Snowdon 50 Mile Ultramarathon

Zagan the motorhome’s sat comfortably on gravel in the plush, manicured surroundings of the Riverside Touring Park in Betws-y-Coed in Wale’s Snowdonia National Park (N53.096462, W3.799403). If your Welsh is anything like mine (practically non-existent), I’ve read it’s pronounced roughly ‘betoos-er-co-ed’, and it means prayerhouse-in-the-woods, referring to a 14th Century church in the village.

We’ve been here a couple of days and have just shifted pitches so we can stay another couple of nights. We booked our pitch back in April, being told it was full at the time (which it is), but when we said we were happy to change pitches mid-stay they squeezed us in. We’ve no idea if the site’s this busy because of more folks choosing to stay in Britain or if it’s always this popular mid-September.

It’s a beautiful site (lovely hot showers with no push-button are always a winner with us) and with the Camping & Caravanning Club discount it’s £27 a night. Not cheap, but it’s top-notch and also a stone’s thrown from the middle of the village where the GB Ultras Snowdon 50 Ultramarathon started from at 6:20am last Saturday morning. I signed up for the race in the spring and have been training for it since then.

After months of running 50 miles a week and spending up to 3 hours on the stair climber in the gym, I did a 30 mile solo run as my longest training session, and then spent the last couple of weeks before the race ‘tapering’. This means rapidly reducing the number of miles run and cutting out any strength training, so my body could fully recover ready for those 50 tough miles in the mountains.

You might imagine this tapering stage would be the easiest part of anyone’s training plan but I find it hard to handle and I’ve read others do too. I’d a ton of fear around this race, which was under control while it was still weeks away and I could focus on the running. As it got closer my anxiety started to warm up and risked boiling over towards the end! I felt lethargic and ached, odd really, but again others report similar stuff.

It’s the first long run I’ve done like this which isn’t way-marked (no signs, arrows or other direction markers), so we had to navigate our own way around the valleys and mountains. The organisers place ‘check points’ every 4 to 8 miles which have water, other drinks and a selection of food. They had a few marshalls out in between them too, but other than that you’re on your own. Ideally you’re supposed to ‘recce’ the course beforehand, walking or running it in sections so you know exactly which of the myriad trails to take and understand how hard it is so you can wear the right kit and pace yourself. In places the route is over long sections of rock, so there is no trail and a compass or other GPS is needed unless you already know the way.

The full 50 mile route heads out from Betws along the valley trails to Tryfan, a huge ‘fan-shaped’ mountain which has a long ledge part way up one side called the Heather Terrace. The route climbs up and along the terrace, then back down and over to the Pen-y-Pass car park and up the Pyg track to Snowdon summit. Back down the Miner’s track, it then climbs back up to the ‘Glyders’, two adjacent mountain summits on a flat wide plateau before dropping down a very steep section called the Devil’s Kitchen. From the bottom you’re then sent up a steep mile-long climb up a mountain called Pen yr Ole Wen, followed by another steep descent. At this point you’re about 30 miles into the 50, and the route follows lower level valley trails around valleys, lakes and forests until you’re back at Betws. Depending on your speed, you might be doing the second 25 miles in the dark, not ideal when you’re up a mountain.

It didn’t work out that way for us though. Low-level cloud over the peaks had the race organisers concerned and as the race progressed we kept being told more and more of the high level route was being swapped to low-level ones. This meant we ‘only’ had to go up Snowdon and the rest was done on relatively low altitude trails. We went from needing to run/hike 50+ miles to 46 miles, and instead of doing 3,600m of climbing, only needed to do 3,000m (about 10,000 feet). I can’t say I was disappointed! The descents were worse for me than going up. I’ve practiced running on mountain trails in Spain, Snowdonia and Cumbria, but to be honest I’ve avoided the long, steep slopes covered in awkward wet, slippery rock which feature heavily on this course, out of fear.

Last year I ran a 50 miler in 5.5 mile loops from home, so had done the distance before. However, I knew the navigation, type of terrain, climbing/descending, time on my feet, salt intake and night-time running/hiking were all going to be new to me. To help keep the nerves under control in the build up to the run, Ju wisely sorted a change of scene for me, booking us into a temporary Camping & Caravanning Club site at Rhos-on-Sea, near Llandudno and Colwyn Bay (GPS: N53.306763, W3.766593, adjacent to Dinarth Hall Camping & Caravan Site).

We had a great few nights up there in North Wales, blessed with some great weather and a lovely corner pitch looking out over the fields. We spent the days sat in the sun watching the horses, ravens (we think), cows and, on walks to the sea, seals on Angel Bay (Porth Dyniewaid), on the Little Orme promontory. There are also a herd of Kashmiri goats on the next headland, the Great Orme, possibly a gift from Queen Victoria although other sources say they might have been moved here and mixed with sheep to help keep the sheep off steeper slopes by eating the grass there first.

Whatever the reason, the goats have roamed wild up there for over 100 years, occasionally heading down into the town as they did in the first COVID-19 lockdown. An article in the news recently warned about folks risking their necks on steep slopes trying to get a photo of the goats. We didn’t quite get that far so didn’t have to restrain ourselves. I was avoiding any running and while Ju’s still training for this weekend’s Robin Hood Half Marathon in Nottingham, it was a long old way and she’s not that interested in goats!

After that wee Welsh chill-out, we headed down here, got ourselves set up on site and at 4:30am the following day leapt out of bed for the ultra, not exactly awake at this point! The competitors each needed to carry spare clothes, food, water, waterproofs, a charged phone, a map/compass and other stuff, so I’d a 4kg backpack on for the run. After showing proof of a negative lateral flow test taken the day before, the organisers gave us our numbers and attached a GPS tracker to each of our bags so they, friends and family could see us slowly moving around the mountains.

At this point, if you’re thinking this 50 mile running is all a bit mad, how’s about this: before we set off we stood and watched about 20 runners head off before us at 6am, on a 100 mile(!!!) version of the race. They’d do the same route as us on the first 50 and then, instead of stopping at the end, they run past the start/finish area and do another 50 miles of valley and mountain trails. Yep. Amazing/bonkers/unbelievable! We 50 milers had a maximum of 24 hours to finish. These guys had 48 hours, and some of them used almost all of it, running and walking through two days and nights. Now that’s mind-blowing toughness.

My race went pretty well. I only missed the route about 10 times, all in minor ways. Three runners accidentally did a 10 mile loop at the start which they actually needed to do at the end, so got timed out at one of the checkpoints and had to withdraw. The few hundred metres I did extra was just fine compared to that!

The 3 mile(ish) ascent up Snowdon was my favourite part. We’d ‘only’ done 15 miles when we started the hike up so I was pretty fresh, and there were hundreds of other hikers on the trails. As we were moving faster than most of them we were constantly getting ‘stuck’ but that didn’t bother me at all, it slowed me down a bit which is exactly what I needed. Whenever anyone saw my kit and race number they quickly moved and lots gave me encouragement. I felt on top of the world, which I was of course, the views were magnificent when I spared a second to look up.

After coming off Snowdon I found myself informally teamed up with a chap called Henry and stayed with him for about the next 20 miles. As we ploughed on up and over the mountain slopes we chatted when we’d the breath.

Henry was an ex Army officer and had a ton of cracking life stories, including completing the Marathon des Sables, a multi-day race held in the Moroccan desert, about 160 miles in all! I couldn’t quite believe I was keeping up with him, although eventually I couldn’t, possibly because he’d only been able to spare the time for a few miles of training in the lead-up to this race.

With about 10 miles left I found myself starting to struggle. We’d been in around 14th place at one point, but I’d pushed too hard and my upper back was aching badly from the hours of deep breathing. My legs were still OKish, and I could jog along on the flat/downhill bits, but at the final checkpoint with 7 miles left I was about done with jogging. Henry stayed with me for another mile or two of walking through the fern and forest, and then got going ahead.

I managed to get jogging again for the last few miles and caught him and a few other runners up, but lost sight of them when the light started to fail and I stopped to put my head torch on. I was hearing ‘phantom runners’ at this point, turning around to find no-one there, wondering if I was losing the plot!

After all those miles in the hills the final four miles or so crawled by, and I managed to take one last wrong turn in the tiny village (where this ought to be all-but-impossible!) before righting myself and finding the way to the finish line. I’d been on my feet for nearly thirteen and a half hours by this point, and it was great to find myself being clapped along by folks in the town, including a group of lads sat outside a pub. Thanks lads, you’ve no idea how much I appreciated that.

The finish itself was a bit odd. I’d taken my headtorch off in fear of looking a bit of a wuss, as it wasn’t quite pitch dark, and the organisers didn’t spot me running alone across the darkish field until I’d almost crossed the line. Ju was there for me though, having tracked me around the hills all day, and that was enough for me.

I didn’t experience the same euphoria I have at the end of other long runs, like the Zermatt Ultra in 2019. I’m not sure why, perhaps before there was no ‘big finish’ with photographers and people announcing names over a tannoy, or maybe I was just too knackered! I did feel a bit of a fraud, as the really hard parts of the course had been cut, and I guessed I’d gone out too quickly and would have failed to finish if I’d had to do all the big climbs and descents. 46 miles ain’t too bad though eh?

I came in 21st in the end from a field of 65 runners, and it was an absolute privilege to be out there with such incredible people. After the organiser had come over and congratulated me at the line (thanks Wayne) and taken a finishing photo I staggered off with Ju towards the campsite. “If I ever suggest doing something like that again, shoot me” I told her. Funerals aside, it was the toughest thing I can remember doing. And yet, here we are a few days later with my thighs still refusing to work, blisters subsiding and chafing healing, and my mind’s already wondering, what next?

None of this stuff would be possible for me without the enduring support and understanding of my wife. The day after I did the race was her birthday and I could hardly walk, and that’s after she’s put up with me whinging for months about training runs which didn’t go well, going on about my endless bag of fear and generally being a pain in the ass. I love my wife more than anything. Happy birthday again my baby. x

Cheers folks, Jay

---

New to motorhome life,
planning your own motorhome adventure or
looking for the perfect gift for the motorhomer in your life?
Check out our OurTour range of books.

---