Johnny Hall's Travels and Travails

Two sub-4 hour marathons in 4 weeks. Today, I ran the Snowdonia Marathon in (just) under 4 hours (3 hours 59 minutes and 37 seconds), which I'm very pleased with. At the start of the day, I wasn't particularly concerned with my final time but by the time I got to Pen-y-Pass at 4 miles and 400 feet of ascent, I decided I was feeling good and that under 4 hours was possible. I paced the day pretty well and certainly much better than Loch Ness. I really enjoyed myself and despite dreading the last climb at 21 miles and descent (500 feet up in less than 2 miles and 500 feet down in one mile, most of it on unmetalled roads), I felt good. I needed a decent cushion before the climb and I had about 7 minutes which was borderline. I, along with 99% of the rest, was reduced to walking on the steepest part of the climb - not because I couldn't run up the slope - simply because walking was quicker, especially with legs as long as mine! In fact, I passed a lot of people on that final slope. The descent was very difficult but my legs felt good and I managed to get down without mishap. It was hard though. I got to 25 miles with about 10 minutes to the 4 hour mark, which meant I had to dig very deep on the finish through Llanberis. My finishing heart rate was around 190 at the end and I had to sprint to the finish line to ensure I was under the target. My gun time was a few seconds over 4 hours but I only care about my chip time (measured from when I crossed the start line). So, a good, if hard, day, only marred by the ridiculous traffic on the way back to Leek. I'm looking forward to taking a bit of a rest from running and concentrating on my swimming before the New Years Day Triathlon. Update: I placed 381st on chip time out of 1500 starters/entries and 1054 finishers. The high DNF rate shows how hard this marathon is, though I though it wasn't any harder than Loch Ness, especially if you discount the last steep climb, which most people walked anyway.