Snowdonia Marathon 2018

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  • Ooof, I found that a very tough one. Started quite slow, holding just under the target pace for sub 4. Got through Beddgelert on schedule under 2 hours. Then started to struggle but kept running, until the last hill... Walked the whole of that, managed to shuffle across the top and let what was left get me down the hill and along the High Street. So the time 3:55:59...PB By 1 minute.

    Huge kudos to everyone else who did it, none more than T Rex... Awesome work. 
  • A sub 4 was the target and did 3.57 so happy enough. Bit chilly after Beddgelert wasn't it but the views with the dusting of snow got to be the best in my 13 trips round. 

    Massive congrats to T Rex. Hugely impressive running in tough weather over night. 

    When do entries open for 2019........
  • panadpanad ✭✭✭
    Fantastic achievements today guys.

    massive congratulations on your success in particular TRex.  (I just dread to think what your next adventure is going to involve... ;) )
  • Brickhill Runner coming in at 5.30 doing the aeroplane ! Great running dad 


  • Hey gang. How are everyone's legs this morning? Making use of the extra hour!? We are heading to the Pantri for 10am for breakfast and refueling 😊

    So that's my 8th Snowdonia completed and confirmed why I/we continue to come back year after year. The mix of challenging terrain, variable weather, stunning scenery; the clearest it's ever been I think, and amazing support makes for the perfect marathon (minus it's PB potential!) I had to commit myself to a sub3 attempt however unlikely it was. I only had a 4 minute difference on my pace band between the first half 1.28 and 1.32 second half. That in the cold light of day was never going to be enough. But I went for it nevertheless. I made it up the pass in 28 minutes to mile 4, and hit all my mile splits up to mile 14. I was really feeling great up-to that point. I also found myself running alongside the first female for quite a few miles which meant the S4C TV camera motorbike was constantly alongside us. Talk about ruining the peace and tranquility!! But I could well be on the S4C race coverage Sunday evening at 8pm (in the Buff) 😀 As soon as we turned into the wind and climbed up from Beddgelert it was a game changer. I was suddenly right off pace in an instant. Roughly 45 seconds per mile slower than I needed to be. And this continued for the whole second half. I pushed on regardless but was passed by lots. A gentleman at Mile 17 told me was in 26th postion. I couldn't believe it. However also knew it was slowing down. I ran the entire last steep climb focusing on maintaining a high cadence with short steps. I knew my course PB (2016) was 3:16.XX and that I was going to be very close to that. I had to pick it up and blast down the other side for a hairy fast final descent back into Llanberis. 3:16.29!! New course PB by 13 seconds! I'll take that. Not the sub3 that I continue to dream of. But a great day out. Definitely my best Snowdonia experience so far!!! 
  • panadpanad ✭✭✭
    Brilliant work UDS and dad :smiley:


  • BritNick at Mile 12 looking fresh as a daisy! And that's despite completing the Round Rotherham 50 the previous weekend!! 
  • Huge well done everybody.

    I absolutely loved it.

    My tight (about to cramp) hamstrings meant I missed the arbitary sub-4:30 by just a touch under two minutes.

    Hope to be back next year. Best marathon in my opinion has been reaffirmed.
  • ChimneyChimney ✭✭✭
    Morning All,

    Back at home and not too many issues. My neck is still quite sore and stiff. 

    As many noted Saturday evening and yesterday, The first half was fine, the second half was a struggle. 

    The view over to Snowdon at the top was just breathtakingly wonderful. Almost worth going back to the bottom to see it all again!

    4:33, a 13 minute PW.

    Catch up more later


    If reality matched intention I'd know I was dreaming
  • Saw on the highlights last night that there was a clear view of the coast up the final climb!!!! 8 completions and not once have I turned around to see it. Haha. Who knew!!! Maybe next year I will take a sneaky peak :-) but as Chimney rightly points out the view of the snow capped Snowdon was quite a sight!!! I was firmly transfixed on that. 

    Hope to read a few more reports here over the coming days. And of course we are all waiting for the Main Event!!...  Trex blow by blow account of his 4 laps!!!!! 
  • Hi guys - huge congrats to you all! Lovely to get hugs from RunJono and Brer but sorry I missed the rest of you. Seeing we'd got UDS in the footage when I went in to the edit suites yesterday morning almost made up for missing him cross the line! If anyone didn't see it, remember it'll be here for a while to watch again and again! http://www.s4c.cymru/clic/programme/799140812
  • ChimneyChimney ✭✭✭
    Ok, yes, I'm sad enough to do it. And, perhaps....., also looking for a way to massage my fragile psyche from my perceived personal poor performance, (No one mention the T word, I've already come to the conclusion that I think I will have to!).

    TL:DR SNOD is too flat.

    Yes, I had a legitimate reason to slow in the second half, I was in a whole world of pain. I'd even texted Mrs C at 15m to say I was close to pulling out. Though in 2015 I blew my calf going up Pen Y Pass, and still finished (There is a sub story which I think you all know anyway). Sub consciously  there was never a hope I would voluntarily pull up even if I was consciously  considering it.

    Anyway, was flicking through the results. 

    Started with me seeing I was 965th to Pen Y Pass, that 85 (effectively) people passed me by the 14m mark, and that a further 142 people passed me by the 23m mark, and that I passed 57 people between 23m and the finish. 

    Went from there to look at whoever came in at 965th and a few places before/after to see what the differences were at the checkpoints. TBH, I was quite surprised how small the differences were overall. 

    This is the sad part. I can lose days in an excel sheet. Downloaded the times from the TDL and went through the Lies, Damn Lies, & Statistics process knowing I would eventually find a way of cutting the data to make me feel better about myself.. I removed (112) who had one or more times missing for the splits so they weren't skewed. 

    I felt like I had slowed terribly in the second half. The figures say I did. They say I was 77.8% of my first half pace. The average was 80.8%.

    There were 3 people who had a negative split. 3. Out of 2120.

    One of the things I looked at which may be of interest to anyone was mode/median/average values for the points between the timing pads and the relative time on the first hill and the last.

      To PYP PYP to 14m 14m to 23m 23m to finish %tage 1st hill to last Total time
    Mode 00:47:18 01:10:46 01:41:41 00:32:04 86.9% 4:11:49
    Median 00:45:14 01:24:41 01:40:34 00:40:28 89.2% 4:30:56
    Average 00:45:35 01:26:37 01:42:02 00:41:43 91.5% 4:35:56
    Chimney 00:44:04 01:25:22 01:46:01 00:38:53 88.2% 4:34:20 (Yep, I remembered 4:33. I remembered incorrectly)

    Here I found some solace. Not that I went well up the first hill in comparison, but that I was still going ok despite how I felt on the final up/down.

    The first hill to last hill %tage for the guy who won was 86%.

    Hills are my friend. Flat is bad.

    So in conclusion, it's not my fault I was slower than I've been before.

    It's the courses fault.

    SNOD has too many flat bits. I need more hills.



    If reality matched intention I'd know I was dreaming
  • ChimneyChimney ✭✭✭
    Wonder if Parkrun will see a significant drop in attendance on Saturday 1st December at 9am?
    If reality matched intention I'd know I was dreaming

  • lol re your 2 posts Chimney - very interesting stats! My main personal stats were that Saturday was my slowest of my 12 Snowdonia's by 57 minutes (and slower than my quickest time by 1h28minutes). My average heart rate for the race was 132bpm (my maximum is around 185bpm), although I hit 180bpm in the last 200 metres. The reason for this was the 15 mile mark my brother pulled up with cramp in his left cramp. He tried to stretch it and walk/run it off, but to no avail, so the next 10-11 miles was a painful (for him) run walk strategy until the finish. We walked  from just before Waunfawr - he managed to run a bit after a tea stop at Tafarn 24, but then struggled big time on the descent. He could barely walk as we got to the High Street so I decided to give him a piggy back to the finish - I didn't want us to walk/hobble over the line. Thankfully the TV camera was on the presenter at the time as she gave did her closing bit for the programme although you can just see us come in over her left shoulder (ironically I spotted myself in the opening credits, picking up a cup of water at the top of the Pass in my 1st marathon in 2007)
  • Don't be too hard on yourself Chimney - the second half would have been worse for everyone this year because we don't normally have a Northerly wind. Usually the wind is behind you from Beddgelert to Waunfawr, but this year it was against you which affected just about everybody (even Russell said so). 
  • Great post Chimney. Love the stats!! I'd love to know what the average runner loses in time in the second half? E.g. How much time does it add? And perhaps break this down into chunks for every 100 runners over the line. I learnt this year that it adds more than I thought although as FOOW correctly states the head wind was a factor. I won't give up on my sub3 dream. I need to get into 2:45 form which is a huge ask. Not sure I'm capable of that but if it don't try I'll never find out. Great highlights show 😁
  • panadpanad ✭✭✭
    Interesting...

    mr panad and I were looking at our splits from a previous year last week when he was thinking about pacing for this year’s race...  he is most definitely someone who doesn’t start slow, whereas i tend to start slow and take it ‘easy’ for the first part of a marathon.  He couldn’t understand how he disappeared off up the pass, down to beddgelert etc and had himself a good 6min lead on me, yet come the end I was passing him.  He thought it was just *too* much of a gap for me to be able to make up if I started that slowly, so we went through the splits one by one..  indeed, by the time I got to halfway he was best part of a mile ahead.  Most miles he had only been the odd 10secs faster than me.  However, come mile 18 I started clawing those secs back (and obviously more rapidly as I only had a third of the race mileage to do it in), ending up 2 mins ahead of him at the finish.  Now I by no means did a negative split, Mile 22/23 is a barrier to that one ;) but I definitely kept going longer.  As far as training for the race that year goes we had pretty similar lead ups - similiar number and length of long runs in particular.  He was consistently faster on his long runs than me - i tend to do long training runs at a ‘comfortable’ pace for the most part with a few tempo miles thrown into the run here and there.  And it was most definitely not just the hills that mr panad lost time on, as he is well used to running up steep hills, and will consistently outrun me up a hill whatever the length of the run...

    this year he was wondering how to pace it as training had been far from ideal (at times non-existent!)  so i suggested to him that to try starting off at a much easier pace, so he purposefully started further back the field (i told him only to try this if he wasn’t going to get frustrated by being unableto get past people and actually end up pushing more).  He gave it a go, and said on the whole he felt good the majority of the way around.  He lost it (energy wise) at mile 24, but feels this was due to lack of training rather than strategy, and had really bad cramp issues in his legs coming down into Llanberis, but other than this felt good the whole race, even didn’t seem to mind the head wind along Llyn Cwellyn..., despite having done minimal training - in a way that has actually frustrated him since the race ie how much better be could have done had he had the good training.
  • Love the stats Chimney.  I'm amazed that only 3 people did a negative split! Did you estimate a halfway time or is that taking the 14 mile timing as half way - which makes it even more remarkable! Maybe I should make a negative split my challenge for next year! Although realistically the only way I might do a negative split would be to do the course in reverse!
    i wonder what time they will open entries on the 1st? If it clashes with Parkrun I might not enter and rely on picking a place up later in the year
  • Very interesting chimney. 

    3:51 for me this year which is my fastest SNOD so far. Hit halfway at about 1:47 but the second half was a horrible struggle.

    The best and most satisfying SNOD for me was my first and slowest. 4:08 with a 2:04/2:04 split. Felt in control the entire way and never walked even on the final hill.
  • ChimneyChimney ✭✭✭
    edited October 2018
    Sorry, redoing what I'd just done. Working at the same time and error'd.....!
    If reality matched intention I'd know I was dreaming
  • ChimneyChimney ✭✭✭
    edited October 2018
    .
    If reality matched intention I'd know I was dreaming
  • ChimneyChimney ✭✭✭
    edited October 2018
    .
    If reality matched intention I'd know I was dreaming
  • ChimneyChimney ✭✭✭
    Any requests on how to slice the data in general, or for anybody in particular?
    If reality matched intention I'd know I was dreaming
  • ChimneyChimney ✭✭✭
    Right. Try not to do work stuff and SNOD stuff at the same time, especially if they both involve times and speed!

    So, for UDS here's the first half and second half split, along with the percentage drop off in the second half

    Finishers 1st 14m 1st 14m pace 1st 14m speed 14m - finish 14m - finish pace 14m - finish speed Drop off
    1-100 1:34:03 06:43 9.0 1:36:06 07:53 7.6 14.6%
    101-200 1:43:15 07:22 8.2 1:46:34 08:44 6.9 15.6%
    201-300 1:47:37 07:41 7.8 1:53:10 09:17 6.5 17.1%
    301-400 1:50:40 07:54 7.6 1:57:45 09:39 6.2 18.1%
    401-500 1:54:56 08:13 7.3 2:00:53 09:54 6.1 17.1%
    501-600 1:57:36 08:24 7.2 2:04:37 10:13 5.9 17.8%
    601-700 2:00:10 08:35 7.0 2:08:36 10:32 5.7 18.6%
    701-800 2:03:16 08:48 6.8 2:11:01 10:44 5.6 18.0%
    801-900 2:04:57 08:56 6.7 2:14:55 11:04 5.4 19.3%
    901-1000 2:07:01 09:04 6.6 2:18:17 11:20 5.3 20.0%
    1001-1100 2:10:50 09:21 6.4 2:20:44 11:32 5.2 19.0%
    1101-1200 2:11:32 09:24 6.4 2:25:35 11:56 5.0 21.3%
    1201-1300 2:16:14 09:44 6.2 2:26:56 12:03 5.0 19.2%
    1301-1400 2:17:57 09:51 6.1 2:31:23 12:24 4.8 20.6%
    1401-1500 2:21:24 10:06 5.9 2:33:31 12:35 4.8 19.7%
    1501-1600 2:23:12 10:14 5.9 2:39:22 13:04 4.6 21.7%
    1601-1700 2:25:24 10:23 5.8 2:45:29 13:34 4.4 23.5%
    1701-1800 2:31:32 10:49 5.6 2:48:09 13:47 4.4 21.5%
    1801-1900 2:36:18 11:10 5.4 2:55:31 14:23 4.2 22.4%
    1901-2000 2:45:24 11:49 5.1 3:05:52 15:14 3.9 22.5%
    2001-2100 2:58:33 12:45 4.7 3:17:21 16:11 3.7 21.1%
    If reality matched intention I'd know I was dreaming
  • ChimneyChimney ✭✭✭
    And broken down to sections

    Start to Pen Y Pass

    Finishers To PYP Pace to PYP Speed to PYP
    1-100 32:51 07:06 8.5
    101-200 36:09 07:49 7.7
    201-300 37:44 08:09 7.4
    301-400 38:51 08:23 7.2
    401-500 40:10 08:41 6.9
    501-600 41:12 08:54 6.8
    601-700 42:17 09:08 6.6
    701-800 43:03 09:18 6.5
    801-900 43:32 09:24 6.4
    901-1000 44:07 09:32 6.3
    1001-1100 45:30 09:50 6.1
    1101-1200 45:43 09:52 6.1
    1201-1300 47:10 10:11 5.9
    1301-1400 47:49 10:20 5.8
    1401-1500 48:42 10:31 5.7
    1501-1600 48:59 10:35 5.7
    1601-1700 49:57 10:47 5.6
    1701-1800 51:23 11:06 5.4
    1801-1900 52:55 11:26 5.3
    1901-2000 55:23 11:58 5.0
    2001-2100 59:30 12:51 4.7
    If reality matched intention I'd know I was dreaming
  • ChimneyChimney ✭✭✭
    Pen Y Pass to 14m mat

    Finishers PYP to 14m Pace to 14m Speed to 14m
    1-100 01:12 06:32 9.2
    101-200 07:05 07:10 8.4
    201-300 09:54 07:28 8.1
    301-400 11:49 07:40 7.8
    401-500 14:46 07:59 7.5
    501-600 16:24 08:09 7.4
    601-700 17:54 08:19 7.2
    701-800 20:12 08:34 7.0
    801-900 21:25 08:41 6.9
    901-1000 22:54 08:51 6.8
    1001-1100 25:20 09:06 6.6
    1101-1200 25:49 09:10 6.6
    1201-1300 29:04 09:30 6.3
    1301-1400 30:08 09:37 6.3
    1401-1500 32:43 09:54 6.1
    1501-1600 34:13 10:03 6.0
    1601-1700 35:27 10:11 5.9
    1701-1800 40:09 10:41 5.6
    1801-1900 43:23 11:02 5.4
    1901-2000 50:01 11:44 5.1
    2001-2100 59:02 12:42 4.7
    If reality matched intention I'd know I was dreaming
  • ChimneyChimney ✭✭✭
    14 mile mat to 23 mile mat

    Finishers 14m to 23m Pace 14m to 23m speed 14m to 23m
    1-100 08:13 07:35 7.9
    101-200 15:27 08:23 7.2
    201-300 19:41 08:51 6.8
    301-400 23:12 09:15 6.5
    401-500 25:49 09:32 6.3
    501-600 28:35 09:51 6.1
    601-700 31:25 10:09 5.9
    701-800 33:17 10:22 5.8
    801-900 35:02 10:34 5.7
    901-1000 37:55 10:53 5.5
    1001-1100 40:46 11:12 5.4
    1101-1200 43:22 11:29 5.2
    1201-1300 44:48 11:39 5.2
    1301-1400 47:35 11:57 5.0
    1401-1500 49:41 12:11 4.9
    1501-1600 54:07 12:41 4.7
    1601-1700 57:18 13:02 4.6
    1701-1800 59:31 13:17 4.5
    1801-1900 04:15 13:48 4.4
    1901-2000 12:24 14:43 4.1
    2001-2100 19:19 15:29 3.9
    If reality matched intention I'd know I was dreaming
  • ChimneyChimney ✭✭✭
    23 mile mat to finish

    Finishers 23m to finish Pace 23m to finish Speed 23m to finish
    1-100 27:54 08:43 6.9
    101-200 31:07 09:44 6.2
    201-300 33:30 10:28 5.8
    301-400 34:33 10:48 5.6
    401-500 35:04 10:57 5.5
    501-600 36:03 11:16 5.4
    601-700 37:11 11:37 5.2
    701-800 37:44 11:48 5.1
    801-900 39:53 12:28 4.9
    901-1000 40:21 12:37 4.8
    1001-1100 39:57 12:29 4.8
    1101-1200 42:13 13:12 4.6
    1201-1300 42:08 13:10 4.6
    1301-1400 43:47 13:41 4.4
    1401-1500 43:51 13:42 4.4
    1501-1600 45:15 14:09 4.3
    1601-1700 48:11 15:03 4.0
    1701-1800 48:38 15:12 4.0
    1801-1900 51:16 16:01 3.8
    1901-2000 53:28 16:42 3.6
    2001-2100 58:02 18:08 3.3
    If reality matched intention I'd know I was dreaming
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