Clwydian Sheeptracks

Race: Clwydian Sheeptracks fell race (27k/AL)
Time/Position: 3.33 (40th from 129)
The incredible weather continues, which both helped and hindered this event, hovering somewhere between mountain marathon and long fell race in tone. It is a great concept: revealing the checkpoints in advance and allowing competitors to reccie the best lines at leisure. One small problem: unlike most of my fellow local runners, for various reasons I hadn't reccied it (apart from three of them). Quite rightly, I lost time as a result in numerous obscure parts of the Clwydians, even though I always knew broadly where I was! As the race name suggests, the fastest lines took trods and hidden sheeptracks - most of which required some prior knowledge, few of which were normal paths. My legs felt a bit tired throughout, but I went reasonably well initially - from Cilcain over Moel Drws y Coed and the shoulder of Moel Arthur down to checkpoints above Nannerch. It was hot, absurdly so for the time of year, and I adopted my normal approach to the weight/water trade-off. This is always risky, and this time I lost: dehydrated towards the end and not taking on food. On the way back from Pen y Cloddiau, I took the slower direct route over Arthur, then got the next two checkpoints bang on before making a stupid decision to drop down to the Vale of Clwyd side for CP13, all the way up Nant y Ne and then the debilitating direct climb reversing my own Hotfoot race route! This finished me off, and I made another bad route choice round the back of Foel Fenlli before limping home dehydrated. Only two weeks after Brecon-Cardiff, so perhaps I was paying a bit for that towards the end.