The roman run as a scenic, 16 mile, hilly(!), run from Silver Street in Brecon to Cyfartha Park in sunny Merthyr. On route it takes in the roman road between the two, hence the name...
The start is hilly, more hilly than I thought, so my moderate/aggressive start was a bad plan and I believe I suffered later on... Mile 3-6 was... hilly! Well the next thing to a mountain, much walking was done. The downhill side was far more successful, steady rhythm, maybe faster than I should have gone, but all good.
Once you hit the reservoir area, it gets a little more up/down, and it was here issues were experienced. First off I needed a pee, easy to fix, then I had a couple of tweaks in the old hamstring and I ran sore for a while. But nothing that was going to do much other than slow me slightly on the hills, which it did.
Starting to smell the end in Pontscill, this was put to the back of my mind and I hit the majority downhill last few miles. One last climb up (most of) Sanatorium Hill was slow, but I took on some water and ran towards the finish. Then left calf... cramp, nasty too, followed by right calf cramp... The way I was running must have looked properly special at this point!
Determined not to stop I tried to run it off and by the time I hit the long downhill to the park I was ok!
Quick trip up the exit route of the park and bingo. Done. I was glad to see the end!
It was a tricky run and I did kick on a bit too much early on, it also highlighted I need to add more longer runs into my training. It also pretty much confirmed I'm in no shape to even attempt the Merthyr Marathon, so let's leave that for at least this year.
I didn't run well, there was too much sore this, cramp that, tired the other, walking climbs... but it wasn't a write off either
So how did I do?
Targets were:
So targets, pretty much licking my finger and putting it in the air here:
Baseline: 2:50
Achievable: 2:35
Would be nice, but maybe beyond me this time: 2:20
Achievable: 2:35
Would be nice, but maybe beyond me this time: 2:20
B target hit, and that's fine!
And I did:
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