In preparation for the Ring O’ Fire next month, I wanted to get out to recce as much of the route as I can. This will allow me to gauge what sort of time it will take me as well as, hopefully, making most of the navigation mistakes in training instead of during the race. One of the main reasons I chose to race the Ring O’ Fire is the fact that it is very close to where I grew up, and where I am currently living. The reason for this is to reduce the footprint of my racing - aligning with the Green Runners pillar of how we move - but also to inspire people to undertake adventures locally to them. I’ll touch more on this later.

The day before, I plotted a route that would take me roughly 5 hours - this being the length of time I wanted my longest run of the block to be. In the past, I have gone further with the peak long run in training, but this time I’ve decided against it. This is primarily as I don’t believe that the physiological adaptations I’d get from going longer outweigh the risk of being overly fatigued and picking up an injury. The main purpose of the run was to get an idea of the terrain on the coastal path and to practice my race day fuelling and pacing strategy. The route that I plotted started in Penysarn and ended near Menai Bridge. I chose these start and end points based on where I could get to with public transport. So how did I get there?

Greener travel

In the spirit of trying to spread the message of reducing our footprint when running, I wanted to use only my body and public transport to get to and from Ynys Mon. Luckily, the town that I live in has a train station, so I booked the first train that went to Bangor the night before and ran down to the station in the morning to catch the train. I’d noticed that the train was 1 hr 50 minutes long, compared to the usual 33 minutes, but I had no other option as I needed to get to Bangor in time to catch a bus. I ended up having to go in the opposite direction along the coast to Rhyl and then waiting there for an hour until the first train towards Bangor arrived. This was OK. I used this time to look at the route on the maps that I’d printed out - the ones that the race organisers provide on their website - and lay on the floor with my legs kicked up on a bench to rest the legs. The train arrived on time and I got to Bangor smoothly.

As I said, I didn’t mind having to wait around for an hour to wait for the next train, but it did bring to mind one of the issues with current UK trains. I don’t think it’s only a problem for runners who want to get to places or races early. I’ve talked to a few other Green Runners about this and we all agree that if we wish to start promoting and encouraging more sustainable travel, then we need to consider the use cases of trains and perhaps think outside the box a little. Currently, I suspect that train times are largely influenced by typical 9-5 work hours, peak times at weekends, and, perhaps related, the times that they can profit the most. This is all great, but I think that work needs to be done to start running trains at more off peak times. Maybe I am asking for too much, and perhaps it would be easier for event organisers to shift back the start times of races and for me to accept having to run later in the day. But it’s food for thought.

I digress, after getting the train to Bangor, I then caught the bus from the train station to Penysarn. It took just under an hour, and costed £4.70. Now, I don’t mind paying a fair price for things, but I struggle to see how paying nearly five pounds for a single bus ticket will help to incentivise people to travel by bus. When I lived near the Peak District, single bus fares were capped at £3 (I believe this is a thing across England). This is still a bit steep if you ask me, depending on how far you are travelling, but it is better than North Wales, where there is a lot more room for improvement if we want more people to use public transport. 55 minutes later, I arrived at Penysarn for my recce, stepping off the bus with a pack full of water and food. So what would I be eating during the run?

Greener fuel

As always, I had to make some fuel for the run, so I went to the shops the day before to grab some bits to make some energy balls and a mega homemade energy gel. I wanted to experiment with some energy balls that had slightly more fat in them than the usual ones that I made and also have a big source of carbs that was lighter than lugging a bunch of 8 bananas around for 5 hours too. I made the balls by mixing the following: 1 cup ground almonds, 2 cups blitzed oats, 1/2 cup honey, 1/8 cup extra virgin olive oil, 1 tin chickpeas, 20 dates, 6 tbsp peanut butter. They turned out pretty good and made around 10 golf ball sized balls. I then made a monster energy gel by blitzing the following: 8 small bananas, 8 tbsp honey, 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil. I smacked them in the fridge overnight and they were good to go the next morning. My plan was to alternate a ball and a few sips of the gel every half an hour. I’ve alternated similar fat bombs with bananas like this in the past and it seems to work pretty well but, as I say, I wanted to try to find a better way of getting my bananas in during a run. If I had to guess, the gel would probably give me around 50 g carbs per hour and then each ball likely had around 40 g carbs each - totalling around 90 g carbs per hour.

Explore your local playground

With fuel and water in my bag, I started on my long run from Penysarn. There was a small section on roads before I joined the official coastal path with quite the climb at the start. I then dropped down to the coastal path, which I would follow for the rest of the run until Menai Bridge. The running was beautiful. At times it was a little technical underfoot and some of the paths were a little narrow, but this made it all the more fun. I did managed to deck it once and hit my shin on a metal step, but other than this, I had no real issues along the way. I ran along beaches, through seaside towns with people enjoying ice creams overlooking the sea, and even ran up a few hills along the coastline.

I’d looked at the route before heading out and wanted to make sure that I took the detours to the checkpoints for the Ring O’ Fire so that I knew were they were before race day. One of the checkpoints had been put at the top of a little climb out from the coast - sneaky if you ask me! I planned to fill my water bottles up at Red Wharf Bay, around 20 km into my recce, so when I reached the bay, I hopped into a pub were they kindly filled my bottles. I know the soft flasks are designed to be filled on the go during the race, but I have never thought that they are too easy to fill myself and I don’t think that any person working at a café or pub has been appreciative when I ask them to fill them either. They’re just so flimsy.

View towards the lighthouse at Penmon Point. It was quiet and tranquil here. I look forwards to arriving here during the race and turning around to the view of the mountains.

After Red Wharf Bay, there was a little climb. It was nice to weave through some of the woods along the coastal path and also to be able to run on some cool boardwalk sections before climbing over some lumps - some of which were not as small as you’d think! After around 30 km, I hit a road that took me to Penmon Point, where I tried to soak in the views over the see and towards the lighthouse. The route then turned back on itself to head towards Beaumaris. There was quite a strong headwind but it also did a good job at helping to cool me down. This section was maybe one of my favourite of the recce. OK, I didn’t particularly enjoy running on tarmac for so long, but the views towards Eryri were just amazing. It never grows old. The view into the mountains, up through the valleys from the coast. In fact, I was with a good friend of mine last week on the way to support my brother running the Snowdon race. We were driving towards Llanberis and I just couldn’t help myself but to say ‘wow!’. Even though I have been there many times in my life, the mountains still leave me in awe. I just love the contrast between the low lying lakes and valleys and the jagged peaks, climbing into the clouds. They’re not the Alps, but they’re just as good, because they’re different.

View towards Eryri. It will never get old.

Just before Beaumaris, there was a section that had two route options - a high and low tide route. There were a few sections like this along the Ring O’ Fire. I looked at the tide and it seemed as if it was far enough out so I opted for the low tide route. It was pretty technical though and was probably the toughest section on the recce - having to run over a beach covered in big stones and pebbles is pretty tough going. I’d ran out of water, so stopped outside someone’s house and the lady kindly said that she would happily fill my water bottles. She even asked if there was anything else that I needed which was very kind of her. I left the beach and followed the road for a little, veering on and off the trails as I did so, before dropping down into Beaumaris. There was another checkpoint here, so I headed off the coastal path to find this one too.

Coming out of Beaumaris, there was a right hand turn that took me up quite the hill. It was mostly on roads from here until Menai Bridge and this climb wasn’t short to say the least. I transitioned into my power hike as I would certainly not be running the hill during the race, so wanted to really dial into race effort. After cresting the top, it was up and down for a while before dropping down towards Menai Bridge. I’d gone slightly quicker than planned (only by around 10 minutes), so continued on for a little towards Church Island before turning back on myself so that I could finish at Menai Bridge. I finished my 5 hour run on Menai Bridge and then walked to my friend’s house nearby. I felt good. In fact, it’s by far the best I have felt after such a long run, which is a good sign as it shows that some of the training that I’ve been doing is paying off. But I did learn a few things, that I’ll maybe touch on in a future post. But sticking to the message, I’d like to just touch on how much fun it can be to explore your local playground - one of the main objectives of this run and the whole project.

Pont Menai - quite the bridge.

Often these days, we like to find new places to go to and new adventures to go on and, sometimes, we tend to overlook the things that are closest to us and look further afield instead. I don’t know the exact reason for this, but I suspect that social media and technology contribute to this desire to want to explore things further afield as these ‘cool’ places are far more in the public domain than they used to be. But that’s also not to say that some of the places that are popular online aren’t local either. I personally have been trying to find new places to explore and new adventures in this country over the past few years. Yes, life is short and you only live once, so if you want to go to somewhere, then you should, but I kind of decided that until I’ve explored far more of my own country, and the wider UK, then I’ll make sure that I look at options closer to home first. Some of my fondest memories over the past couple of years are from hiking in the UK or running around my local area. At the end of the day, an adventure is what you make of it and, for me, I always have fun when I am exploring some new roads or paths. This is why the Ring O’ Fire appealed to me so much. It’s a crazy tough race, right at my doorstep, and best of all, I get to do a whole loop of the beautiful Ynys Mon.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that we should sometimes try to open our eyes a little wider and see what there is to explore close to where we live. And even if we’ve been there before, maybe next time we pay more attention to the wildlife, to the colours around us, to the sounds that we can hear. There is more to exploring than simply ticking a square off an OS map, because every square has so much more than what the naked eye first sees.

I think it was a quote from The North Face back in the day:

“Explore your playground”

I remember reading this as a teenager and resonating with it so much. It drove me to want to explore what was around me - the mountains, the coast, and the woodlands. In hindsight, I don’t think it’s ever left me. I continue to want to and to try to explore what’s around me wherever I’ve lived. I suggest just going outside, looking around, and seeing the beauty that is all around you.