Caerphilly Summit Challenge 32 miles 4th July 2009

It's official Caerphilly has hills...lots and lots of them! We were under no illusions this would be an all day affair. Navigating and running in an area you don't know is not easy and when there are so many ascents only the super fit and those who have local knowledge will tear round the course. The Challenge was in its 19th year and organised by the LDWA, the runners had their own start time 9am and the walkers set off and hour earlier, however some runners set off somewhere in between. Also there were 3 different distances so it was important to follow your own directions and not run after the people who seemed to know where they were going. My compass was invaluable if only to give a general bearing to back up the directions.

We ran / walked / shuffled on every type of terrain imaginable, forestry, bracken, woodland, road, cycle tracks, old railway lines,spoil heaps, road....occasionally passing walkers on the same route. There were checkpoints, some self clip and others manned with drinks and snacks and very jovial LWDA members (apart from the first which were very demoralsiing..but that's another story)

Onwards and upwards we went, it was very warm and when the rain came, which it did quite forcibly, we kept on running and didn't bother with waterproofs as we were too hot. The rain stopped and everything dried out except from our feet, we caught up with some other runners determined to get a head as they kept speeding up every time they saw us! This was the real question of the day, How do 2 runners whom we overtook at mile 5 turn up a head of us at mile 21..they didn't overtake us and we didn't go wrong, I sense shortcuts a foot or a tardis! It's still keeping me a wake.

Everything was going great, 2.7 miles to go and we took a wrong turn..running too fast we took our eye of the ball and took the wrong footpath. This made us add another 3 miles to the event. We navigated our way back on course, caught up with the walkers we had previously overtaken and made one last effort and legged it back to the finish. Here we found, food drink and a very warm and friendly group of volunteers who really made us feel very welcome. I'll be back next year.please don't change the course as I can just about remember this one!

This race is organised by The Long Distance Walkers Association (LWDA)
Please have a look at their web site for all events

http://www.ldwa.org.uk/index.php