I didn't want to let COVID-19 stop me achieving anything with my running this year. Searching for a challenge I looked around and the hills surrounding my town looked an obvious choice. I discovered the Rhymney Valley Ridgeway was an established route and chose 17th July to take it on. The weather forecast looked good although some rain the days before made the ground a little muddy in parts.
The Rhymney Valley Ridgeway is a circular route that starts at the Maenllwyd Inn, Rudry and takes you up the hills that surround the Rhymney Valley. The route is a mix of woodland and hill top trails, some country lanes and the occasional trail completely overgrown by ferns!
There is over 1200 meters of ascent and my hips are feeling everyone of those today. The navigation isn't the easiest as the route isn't marked well at points. There was one navigational error where I got lost in the woods for a few minutes before taking the decision to go back on myself. I had I had taken a turn too early.
I felt pretty good for most of the run but did start to feel tired after about 18 miles. That was when I reached Eglwysilan common and another long climb. At this point the sun came out and it started to feel quite warm. I was unsuported and so limited what I carried to save weight. I carried 1.25 litres of water and 0.5 litres of SIS energy drink, that wasn't enough as I ran out of fluids with 3-4 miles left. I fueled with 8 SIS energy gels, 2 with caffeine which gave me a boast in the last 2 hours.
During mile 26 I crossed the Ridgeway Golf course and from there it was pretty much downhill to the finish line. Unfortunately the Maenllwyd Inn hadn't reopened due to the pandemic so I wasnt able to celebrate with a cold beer, I had to settle for a recovery shake.