Port Talbot Half Marathon

Yep, I went back to the Port Talbot half marathon for the 3rd year in a row. I only really did it again this year because my friend Lisa, (who is the receptionist at Whitchurch Chiropractic in Cardiff, who treated me for a pelvis misalignment), was looking for a race to enter. I gave her a list of races that I had completed previously and that I knew were coming up in the near future and she chose the Port Talbot half marathon.

Now the Port Talbot half marathon is not a race around the streets of Port Talbot, and in fact it isn't even in Port Talbot, it takes place in a lovely valley north of Port Talbot starting at the Glyncorrwg Ponds & Visitor Centre, an outdoors venue for fishing, cycling and walking mostly but, the race is organised by Port Talbot Harriers, which is where the race gets its name from.

On the day I arrived nice and early as last year I seemed to remember that car parking was at a premium and I didn't fancy having to park too far away from the start, which is a bit ironic if you think about it. There I was worrying about a bit of a walk to and from the car when I was about to run 13.1 miles.

Lisa arrived with her husband Stephen and it was just a case then of hanging out until our start time, which was a little after 11 AM. Now I decided that I was going to run with Stephen and Lisa, dropping back a couple of starting pen places as I had been suffering from runners knee which had been bugging me for about three weeks. I had run at Parkrun the day before, which I took at an easy pace and my knee had held up but I could feel it niggling in the background all the time so, knowing that my usual pace was going to be quicker than Stephen and Lisa's, I had decided that I would run with them and see how my knee fared over the longer distance.

3 - 2 - 1 Bang .........

And we were off, pretty slowly, along a narrow path and we soon came grinding to a halt as the crowds funneled through a narrow gate. The path took us around the ponds, up a steep but short ramp and then we had a very long straight section but, there were so many people that it was difficult to get past anyone, but we did manage to pass a few people on our way to the first water station at about 3 miles.

I was keeping my eye on Stephen who was a few meters behind me and who was a few meters in front of Lisa and they were keeping a stead pace, however I was finding that I was having to slow my pace to keep in touch with them as I naturally wanted to run faster. My knee was feeling OK as long as I didn't lengthen my stride too much, so I kept a shorter stride but increased my cadence.

4.5 miles in and we began a very gradual decent down to the water station at mile 6. I looked behind me and Stephen and Lisa were quite a bit further back. I had obviously quickened my pace without realising it and so I made the decision to deliberately increase my speed. I wanted to make the most of the extra speed I could achieve on this decent before we began the 7 mile ascent from the 6 mile water station where I knew my pace would be somewhat slower.

The crowds had thinned out dramatically by now and so passing others wasn't a problem and I reached the water station with no issues and feeling strong and good, now we begin the uphill section.

Going up!

Now I say uphill, and I do use the term in this instance loosely because it is a very gradual incline, however, after running up this incline for 7 miles most people are usually feeling the burn in the quads and glutes with a couple of miles still left to run but, I wasn't feeling to bad at all.

I was having to concentrate on my running form for the final mile though. I was passing others who were obviously tired, their feet were shuffling along, torso's stooped over and heads bowed looking almost down at their feet. It is so easy to end up doing this but I kept telling myself to keep my head up, my body straight or a very slight lean forward and power my arms back and forth which would drive my legs forward naturally, and this got me strongly through to the finish in about 02:09, which I was happy with considering my knee and holding back my pace for those first few miles.

Stephen crossed the finish line next followed by Lisa a few minutes later. Lisa has a charity place for the 2020 London Marathon so this would be a good start to her training. If she can keep 13 miles in her legs until after the Christmas holidays then she has a good basis to start training from and should then only need about 3 months to get to a race ready position and, my advise to her would be to get to 23 miles in training, not the 18-20 miles as recommended by many. I remember reaching 20 miles at Manchester and then those final 6 miles were the hardest 6 miles I had ever run.

So all in all this was a good race, particularly so as the rain held off, and those that know me will tell you how much I dislike running in the rain.

Lisa and I are next running on the 1st September in the Tough Runner organised Cotswold trail half marathon.

So check out the video below, please hit the LIKE 👍button, share it with your friends and most importantly, subscribe to my channel so that you don't miss any future video's.

Trail Running at Blaen Bran Community Woodland

The Blaen Bran Community Woodland is a little gem of a woodland that I have passed many times but I've never stopped to take a look around.

I had planned on doing a 11 or 12 mile road run in preparation for the Port Talbot half marathon, but I got out of bed late that Sunday morning and I didn't have the time then to be out for a couple of hours, so I had the idea of trying out this trail.

The woodland does have its own small car park, and it was almost full when I arrived but there is ample parking only a very short distance down the road.

I put on my Hoka ATR trail shoes and made my way through the gate onto a hard packed, gravelly uphill path which took me to the remains of a building and a junction in the path. At the turn of the 20th century there had been a coal mine on this site and also clay was excavated for the brick works at the bottom of the hill. I decided to take the path to the left, thinking that this would take me up the left hand side of the woodland.

The climb up the path wasn't too steep, but it was steep enough to get my heart rate up and beads of sweat forming on my brow. About half way up I came to a small, man made water reservoir, which was about half full, or half empty, whichever way you want to look at it, and I continued up the hill.

There was a gate at the top of the hill by the boundary fence, which I went through and turned right. This took me on another climb along a rough, stony path which was difficult to run along. The path leveled out and I recognised where I was and continued to follow the path. This brought me to a junction in the path which I knew would take me to the Mountain Air car park if I went left, so I turned right knowing that this would take me back into the woodland.

There are lots of paths and lots of junctions, so I would just choose a junction, preferring one that had an incline and I ran here and there until I'd been out for an hour or so. At one stage I ended up in what looked like an overgrown orchard where the public path was overgrown and obviously little used. I gave up trying to find a path through here and so I doubled back on myself and headed back to the car park. However I had lost my bearings somewhat and so I ended up using the "back to start" feature on my GPS Polar M430 watch which showed me the direction I needed to run to head back to my starting position, which was only 0.32 of a mile away.

I have to say that this was a very enjoyable run, only a fifteen minute drive from home, with different ground surfaces to run along, uphills, downhills and level running. I could easily run two laps of the perimeter for about 8 miles. From the top of the woodland there is a rough path which would take me to the top of the hill behind where, if one was so inclined, one could run all the way to the old bronze age fort at the top of Twmbarlwm and back, which I estimate would be a good 13 miles. I will definitely be running here again.

Solo or group running - which are you?

I enjoy my club runs on a Tuesday & Thursday evenings, plus parkrun on a Saturday morning. I enjoy the company, the chat and the motivation that running as part of a group gives me. There are times that I do have to to go out for a solo run, maybe because I need to put in some extra miles and the weekly club 10k isn't enough and a Tuesday is my only available day to get in a longer run, as it was this Tuesday or, I need to run an extra distance on top of the club runs. There are many reasons why I do sometimes have to go out on my own.

Whenever I am out running, either alone or with a group, I always see plenty of other runners out there running alone, headphones plugged in to their ears listening to some, "banging tunes", or maybe a podcast or audio book. Are they running alone by choice because they prefer to run solo? Do they not want to run with others as part of a club? I do know that clubs aren't everyone's cup of tea, some people don't feel that they are competitive enough or feel that they may not be fast enough for club running, or that they don't want to feel pressured into having to represent their club at races. There are probably as many reasons for not joining a club as there are for joining a club. I know people who do prefer to run solo, it gives them a chance to think, or they just prefer the solitude.

If I have to run solo then I like to take my mp3 player with me which has a built in radio, I like the mixture of music and chat which can be very entertaining and seems to help make the running time go by quicker. I will often stop to take in a view or watch some wildlife, and yes, I do use this time to think about life, the universe and everything but, given the choice of running solo or with a group, I would choose the group every time, whether that be with the club or just a group of friends.

So check out my video below on this same subject where I ran an 11 mile route, along a canal, country lanes and along the River Usk. Please like 👍 my video, share it with your friends and subscribe to my channel so that you don't miss any future videos.