My regular Black Mountains running friends and clubmates Brett and Tim have run the route (devised by Brett) 3 times and they currently hold the self-supported record. I've been taking a break from racing but needed a challenge. Back in April, while running with Tim in Snowdonia, the idea of taking on the Rownd became more real. I’d looked at the records and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to challenge Brett and Tim’s time but I realised no one had given an unsupported Rownd a go. I’m looking at other unsupported efforts so this looked like an ideal tester. I recced the route in 2 runs from Abergavenny. The first half I did with Tim and Dick Jones four weeks out, running from the start to Crwg Mawr (48km in) and then heading back over Sugar Loaf back to Abergaveny for 59Km total. Two weeks later I did the second half. I decided to do this as a dry run for being unsupported by doing all on my own, setting off from Abergavenny and re-joining the route at Crwg Mawr. This was a total run of 77.3 km. It was clear that water was going to be more of an issue for the attempt. I have created a list of What3Words of the sources I found along the way. In the main report below I’ve mentioned the ones I used on the day. Hopefully these will be of use to others giving it a go.
I headed off from the Scout Hall at 04:26 (I’d aimed for 4:00). Overnight rain had left things damp and there was still good cloud cover but the temperature was in the low teens so perfect. As I only had to finish to set an unsupported FKT I didn’t have an absolute target for time. I wanted it to be Type 1 fun not my normal race Type 2! But I did hope I could finish in daylight, the later than planned start made that harder (spoiler alert: even if I started on time I’d have still needed the headtorch). I did have Brett and Tim’s pace noted. I knew before I started I would be well off that, in hindsight I would have adjusted those times by a factor that was realistic to stop me making unrealistic comparisons .
My fuel for the day was 10 x 200g home made gels plus 8 x home made rice cakes and a packet of Aldi vegan wine gums. I also had enough tailwind for 6 bottles. This was approximately 1,700g of carbs. I usually race off 90g an hour so that seemed about right. I also had 4 x 500ml water bottles, 3 of which were full. I also has a few Caffeine Bullet Ginger Roars. This put my pack at 7kg+ which was heavier that I am used to, I should have thought about this before….
Sugar Loaf was sumited in clag (but with the sun starting to burn through) which lead to my first navigation error and just before 7km. I’ve no idea why I decided to turn left and it only added 300m or so but it did spoil the line down which was in shoulder length bracken. Halfway down there I got a beautiful photo of the sun rays breaking through. I made another mistake at 9km which was another 200m or so. This was worrying me a little, I was hoping this was down to me recceing with someone else and not necessarily taking it all in. It wasn’t until 94km that I made my next real mistake in navigation. I do think those early errors just made me focus more.
By Pen Cerrig Calch the clag on the peaks was gone and the weather from then was much like it was for the rest of the day, dry with occasional sun, sometimes warm but generally perfect conditions. I was really struggling to find any excuses.
Ahead of the run one of my worries was bracken/nettle growth. I’ve recce’d a Brecon Beacons race in May only to race in July with big chunks covered in Bracken where there was nothing before. This wasn’t really an issue for the Rownd. The descent of Sugar Loaf and towards the very end off Y Gear were the only really heavy bracken sections so really only a few hundred metres in total. The climb up Mynydd Llangors was significantly more overgrown than a few weeks back but it didn’t cause any issues.
I saw my first person (a walker) coming off Llangors (about 5 hours in). It started to get busier on the way up to Waun Fach. Mentally I split the route in to two distinct halves. Up to Bal Mawr at 55km it was much harder than the second half which has really long runnable sections. I picked up my first fresh water before Bal Mawr in the Mynydd Du Forest (What3Words ///horses.vampire.stretcher ). I filled up 3 bottles and also took fresh food from my back pack and put the used bits into the pack. I reuse all my packaging except the parchment that wraps the rice cakes so they came home with me. The climb to Bal Mawr was pretty overgrown but knowing most of the next 40kms was going to be pretty runnable made it easy to cope with.
Trail Events were running a marathon and ultra on the day. I started overtaking runners on the way to Rhos Dirion. They were supposed to turn off but at one point I realised one of them was following me after the turn. I briefly turned back to go and tell the guy about his mistake.
On the bit after Black Hill the route Brett and Tim did takes you left off the main path and you properly enter the fell running world again with no clear path. This is where my earlier recce paid off as I knew there was water available in a small stream (///followers.constrain.conspire). I filled up 3 bottles at that point. There was nothing obvious for water between there and my last stop 20km before. The bit from there back up to the Offa’s Dyke is really tough as I couldn’t find any clear line. The land is a mixture of bog with heavy wimberry and heather growth with a lot of holes. Again the recce paid off as I knew what it would be like, and knew just to push on in a straight line not attempting to find a good line.
Once back on the Offa’s Dyke I made good progress until I picked up another bottle of water from a river (///scarred.gratuity.rivers). This was the point where you hit the road climb to Y Gaer. I felt good on that climb all the way to the top. The descent of Y Gaer has shoulder height bracken for a 100m or so. After hitting the road I made my first big navigation error since the early km. My watch wasn’t being spot on at that point and I missed a left turn, back tracked and went down the wrong path. I did correct myself but added a few 100m and quite a bit of time. I did struggle after this and I think the mistake was related to tiring as I had no problems on the recce. From Bryn Arrw you feel like you’re nearly there but you know you’ve still got the steep side of the Skirrid to go. I’d planned on it being 2 hours from there (it actually took 2 ½ hours as I was fading!) . The head torch came out a few 100m before the foot of the Skirrid climb which took me twice as long as I’d previously done it but actually not much slower than the recce two weeks before. It was on the descent that I was at my worst and was way slower than usual, I was glad there was no one to witness how pathetic I was :-D.
I wasn’t too bad on the road section to the finish and I finally touched the Scout Hall gates at 23:50 for a time of 19:24:08.
It was a really great day out. I had been naïve thinking I could do it as an easy effort as I was pretty broken by the end. A route like that is always going to stretch you. I do think that easy (and relaxed) approach did pay off as I hit halfway in almost exactly the overall time so an even split. But the second half is so much more runnable than the first. It made me appreciate how good Brett and Tim’s effort was and they just did it as a spur of the moment training run! True mountain legends.
Thanks for the route Brett. I’d say it’s a perfect route for someone looking to stretch themselves ahead of taking on the Big 3 Rounds. It was my first go at a big unsupported effort and I think I got most things right. The food worked well except I could only eat 5 of the 8 rice cakes, by the 5th I was struggling to swallow them. They are also quite heavy and not as efficient as my homemade gels. I think I was about bang on for my 90g carbs an hour. The food did make the pack heavy but I think it was worth it. If I was going for a time I could potentially have taken less (but that being said, on the day I don’t think I could have gone faster except for spending less time taking photos). I am looking to do more unsupported efforts and I learnt a lot on this one. I smashed my wrist in the Brecon Beacons while running alone a couple of years ago, as a result I was very careful taking no risks, and I did make a big effort to keep focused. I stayed upright most of the day with just one slip on my arse on wet grass which is very good for me.
I took loads of very bad selfies on each of the peaks, these all look about the same so I’ve included just a few for evidence.
Main Gear Choices:
I got through 10 x 500ml water bottles I used a MSR Trail Shot Water Filter for all but one of the refils, I used my Salomon filter bottle once. The Trail shot is much slower to refill (about 10 mins over the day) but has the big advantage of being able to fill up multiple bottles and be able to add Tailwind. I also find the Salomon filter slow to drink from.
PolesL I used Mountain King Sky Runners. These are fantastic! They are a new acquisition for me after years of Black Diamonds. The only problem I have with them is they fold into 4 not 3, which is probably a bonus to most, but this makes them harder to store. They kept falling loose from my belt straps so ended up tying them in place using my Salomon vest strings which was a minute or so every time I used them, I should have worked out a better way before the day.
Shoes: Altra Mont Blanc BOAs. These worked brilliantly on the day, the grip is great on most things (I did slip once on wet grass early on) and the cushion was just right. The BOAs make adjusting shoe fit on the fly really easy, I tightened them up for technical sections and released it on the runnable bits.
Vest: Salomon 12 Adv Skin. My trusty vest is now 5 years old and is well patched and repaired (one zip replaced). It was stretch to it’s maxed with all the extra water and food. This was probably it’s last major outing as there a few holes that are getting beyond patching. Sad as I really love my scruffy old vest!
Water sources:
///waitress.emulating.financial (stream)
///loud.loyal.something (stream)
///trick.spinners.standard (river)
///jolt.doormat.bronzed (stream)
///cattle.civil.winemaker (river)
///horses.vampire.stretcher *** (stream)
///followers.constrain.conspire *** (small stream)
///scarred.gratuity.rivers *** (river)
***Used on the day