'Friday 4th September
Took day off work, travelled up, nice and easy drive into Wales 'proper', neared the Beacons, found the reservoir, missed the turn and carried on up...and up...and up and thought 'oh my gord, what on earth have i let myself in for?!'
Didn't quite reach the top (not sure there was one, athought that crossed my mind quite a lot the following day!).  The drive certainly awakened me to what was going to be in store tomorrow...eventually i turned around, headed back down to whence i came, found the reservoir to turn into (as per the instructions i had received but not read properly!).
In i went, not many about yet, tent up (next to only tree in the field and right on big bunch of stinging nettles (rookie camping error!)), stove on, cup of tea, unpack, mooch about...relax!  Camp site steadily filled up, not too hectic, but as always with these things, as i saw the people coming in i start thinking 'they look proper runners, they look serious proper runners', and as always everyones great and welcoming and all in the same nervous boat!
Struck up a few conversations but was pretty much in zombie mode, bag checking, kit checking, do i take this, do i put this in drop bag, what am i doing here etc etc!
So 9.30pm race briefing, met a bloke called Chris from exeter who i would see many more times the next day cris crossing paths.  Briefing was good, got goose bumps a bit, cant remember too much as just wanted to get head down and grab as much of the available 5hours kip as possible.
Restless sleep, blimey those sheep can make some noise, people arriving late putting tents up in the dark too, shouldnt have stuck tent up right at the way in..another rookie camping error!
Saturday 5th Sept...Race Day!
So awake most of the night but officially up at 3.30am.  Bunged a load of oats and milk in the pan, fired her up...and nearly burnt the tent down, good start!  Cup o tea, brekkie, toilet,, kit on, jacket...no jacket, starting to spit with rain...t shirt it is then!

Time to race...lots of runners milling about , headtorches glowing an anxious air to the morning.  There was no rush we all 'dib' in to start.

We were off, nice and slow, a few bombing off, but generally people in their own zone or chatting to friends they alreay knew or the start of running commaraderie that inevitably builds for these things.
Off we went across the reservoir, right turn, left turn then slow climb...then a big steep climb, the weather broke to harder rain and up we went, and up and up!  I was quite glad it was still dark so not to see what was ahead.  This was already some of the steepest ascent i have ever done and this was the first peek, the first 2 peeks were for the short course but we had to top them and dib in as par for our course. 

Nice to get to the top of the first, hats off to the marshal cos it was pretty grim weather up there, this was one of the few manned peaks.
After that, off we went and it was nice to get going, running, we had another peak to top on the way to Check Point 1, so actually by the time we got to CP1 we still had not bagged any of our 10 Peaks!

CP1 came and went, (but the downhill was to reappear later on my route).  CP1 was friendly enough, basic snacks, filled up water and it was off again.
The whole race was a blurry expanse of hills, bogs, rocks, tough grass, cows, sheep, climbing and running through some pretty tough pain.
I'll pick out my highlights/lowlights...same thing on a race like this!
Check point 2, great checkpoint, really bubbly, really helpful, had a change of socks (we'd been in a LOT of bog!), felt a new lease of life, great!

CP2-CP3 was a long hard slog, by the time i got to cp3 i was out of fluid, starving and needed a couple of minutes to get myself straight.  Thankfully it was manned by some great cowboys and indians who had there dance music playing and were extremely helpful.  I found my drop bag, decided to change from my innov8's to asics fuji's, fresh socks, bowl of pasta, tea and filled up extra 500ml water bottle.  It was nice to grab some tailwind sachets from drop bag as i'd forgotten to bung them in my backpak.  on the way in to cp3 i met Chris again (from exter), he was just leaving cp and seemed to be going well.
When i left cp3 ( a new man!) i carried on route following my garmin etrex gps, went about a mile and met chris again coming from a different directions!  He'd gone wrong way, a few had followed him and they weren't particularly chirpy!  All part of the self nav i guess, for my part if i didnt have someone in sight i followed my etrex, its' done me proud on other routes and if it ever has gone slightly wrong its been user error (more to come on that!)

One of the most spectacular ridges was the Black Mountains, earlier in the race i had run a small section with a chap (name unknown) who had commented 'see that dark shadow over there'  and he was pointing a long long way off at the time, 'thats the black mountains' he said, 'oh that looks a bit eerie' i said ' we dont run all the way over there do we?'...i think i knew the answer as soon as i said it ' oh yes we do, and if you've never been along the top, dont look down' he said!
Well when we did get there and it was some climb to get up, it was spectacular, the whole route was spectacular but this was one of the reasons i had decided to run the brecon beacons.  I can only describe it as huge 700m high wave thats ready to break along the fields below.  The run took us along the ridge, the stoney, slippy, close to the edge ridge!  I looked down and over a few times and each time my tummy took a little turn, there were strange birds that sounded like ducks hovering overhead, i'll just remember it as a very special part of this run.  After that ridge we turned and headed to the next peak, we ran across some army folk that looked 10 times worse then i was feeling (so that made me feel a bit better!).  Normally as you run past people on this sort of race you get the normal 'well done/keep going', but i felt these army guys needed that more than me and from their responses they definitely did!

It was somewhere along this section i started to get the most immense pain at the top of both feet, best described as the feeling similar to someone driving a nail in the top of my feet, i'd been tightening/loosening my laces trying to sort it, but i came to the conclusion the pain was here to stay, so i tied my laces as normal, had a couple of painkillers and carried on

After a long trek along some flatter sections i hit check point 4, i was feeling ok, Chris was there and having a bit of a meltdown, i tried to push him on with me but he needed a recharge.
Filled bottles and off, the next peak started steady climbing then came the toughest vertical ascent of the lot, literally climbing on all 4's to get to the top.  I would pick a rock, climb, get to rock and climb again, this worked well for me, but this was one climb you didn't want to lean back on!
I was WELL chuffed at the top of this Peak and had a little song and dance to myself (the mind does strange things!)

CP4-5 was undulating but managed to get some good run sections, was hoping to hit CP5 before dark, i got sight of the check point in good light but it was a bit of a detour route to get there.  I tried to keep another runner in sight to keep speed up, he was flying but i hung on, he dissappeared in a dip and when i caught sight he was climbing a farm gate surrounded by cows and running on up past them, oh dear i thought!   Fortunately i was in a didn't care, knackered state so vaulted the gate, cows giving me a good hard stare and i sprinted on up with the only objective not losing sight of matey!
Didnt quite make it to CP5 before dark, about half hour shy, so it was headtorch on and down we went.

CP5, no toilets which i really needed, but hot food, cup of tea, restock water and tailwind.  No veggie option so had the best egg and onion bap EVER!  There was me and 2 other guys all looking worse for where, my gps had packed up, i'd been on map or following people for last few hours but i knew i'd be in trouble for the last section in the dark...'anyone want to buddy up?...i have no idea where i'm going!' i declared.   A chap that had been sorting his bag and looked ready to go said' yeah ok, i'm up for that'  Great, hurrah!  His name was Tim, we'd ben criss crossing paths, we opened the map and he said about going a different route to the next peak that should be a slower climb, longer but easier, fine i said, and we go down here past the toilets...brilliant!..life saver!  So off we went.
We got on well, had some laughs, dug in and couldnt have asked for better company to grind out the last section.

The last section was my favourite (at least as a memory anyway!), it was everything i expected, we had 3 big big peaks to tackle including the big one Pen y Fan.  It was brutal, the front of my shins felt like they were on the outside of my legs, my quads expoding, my feet were pounding, i felt 2 blisters on both little toes now popped ( i didnt want to stop and plaster as i would not have expected Tim to hang on).  But the dark, the camaraderie, the relentlessness of it is what this race is all about.  We battled along, we were both already quickly on last batteries for headtorches (i'd forgotten about the mornings headtorch use) so we were both on dim setting to conserve battery, no idea what it would have been like if we'd run out... 'nightmare' springs to mind!

Pen y Fan was great, it just kind of appeared out of the darkness (obviously after a lot climbing!).  We had a couple of pics, i'd still like to see it in the day as i have feeling we were quite close to some rather trecherous looking edges!  On to Cribyn which was quite close but a big deep stepped up and downer just to make those shins expolde slighly more!  Fan y Big was not far either, some more perilous steps, passed a few short coursers, then the search for the dib box, nowhere to be seen so i set my ghead torch to beam and bright mode, scoured the Peak and found a bunch of rocks, it was there!  Felt quite pleased with myself for finding it as Tim was doing most the navigating a little contribution always helps!
It was now the final leg home, i'd sussed the distances on the map and between us we kept a good pace and direction.  We had one slight minor detour where i thought i'd seen torches and the route must be over there, off we went, no its sheep Tim said...yeah it was sheep...i was tired!
The final leg from Fan Y big was still another 7-8kms and still a lot of nasty descending to do.
It went quite quick (but took a long time!) and when we eventually clocked the lights from the reservoir it was a heartening sight.  As with a lot of this race though things arent always as close as they seem!  The last descent was particularly steep and nasty but we knew the finish was just round the corner.

 

So finally the finish, there were about 6 people at the end who gave us a clap, printed our times and presented us our medals.  We had fished in 20hrs 21 mins and come 51st and 52nd out of 100ish starters. 
I still cant quite comprehend this race, the climbs, the pain, the scenery, its left a special memory for me, hence i thought i'd have a crack at a blog!
My goal is to do the UTMB and i was here for the 3 points on offer and boy do you earn them.  It was a simply organised race, no course pictures, plenty of safety, great check points.  At no point did i have any thought that i wouldnt finish (maybe its because the drop out bus cost a fiver to get back to hq, and i'm just tight!), but this was right up there with a life experience to remember.   A friend of mine commented that this was the Land of the Gods, i think that sums it up nicely!  Cheers