"Each step forward has a sacred meaning of its own"   Sri Chinmoy

Across Wales Walk (or Run) 2025 - Anchor Bridge to Clarach Bay  - 6 September 2025

I signed up for this event at a time when injury was preventing me from running. I could walk without any problems, so why not challenge myself with an epic challenge walk? Then, as the months went by, my running began to come back to life as, after a few false starts, I managed to get over my injuries and start jogging and then doing some short speedwork. Through the summer I had also thrown in several long walks, where I enjoyed the summer and the landscape but also pushed myself a bit, to try and get back my lost endurance and pace. They culminated with 33 miles up and down the sides of the Wye Valley, of which I am pretty sure I jogged and shuffled about half the distance. So - there I was with a bit of shuffling, a bit of running and a lot of walking behind me, hoping to traverse the whole width of Wales in a day. The cutoff was 18 hours, I told people (if they asked) I was aiming for 15 hours but, having done some faster running in New York in August, I was secretly hoping for the magic number 13.

As with the Skyrun in Snowdonia in 2024, logistics were a challenge for this one and I was a bit nervous about getting enough sleep (and getting a decent meditation) the night before the 5am start. As part of the entry fee you get to kip on the floor of the Memorial Hall in Clun before a basic tea and toast breakfast and a bus ride to the start at Anchor Bridge, where a stream (Nant Rhuddwr) marks the border. I set my watch to vibrate-only for 3am (as they wake everyone at 3.15) but found myself wide awake at twenty past two after a surprisingly good sleep. Those of laid out in the bar area had gone for lights out at 9pm and despite some jetlag from a transatlantic flight a week earlier, I managed to drift off quickly. Rising early gave me a chance to creep out to the car with my sleeping bag and meditate there, getting a good, solid session in to set me up for the day. I downed some toast and tea and a few buns and things I had brought with me then we walked in a crocodile through the silent, stone cottages of pre-dawn Clun to the waiting buses. At Anchor a few doublers who had walked/run through the night from Aberystwyth were curled up in bivvy bags waiting for the return journey. As i recall, 3 out of the 6 doublers were successful. Impressive to even try!

I set off with the runners, going faster than my training pace to start with so as to tailgate some experienced hands over the first section, which was in full darkness to begin with. The dew on the Kerry Ridgeway shone silver in the light of head torches and the morning star was bright in the sky behind us. I kept up the slightly unsustainable pace to stick with a bunch of runners and it seemed to pay off as the route was not always dead easy to follow. I had a GPS track on my phone and a powerbank as backup, but having run out of power on the Skyrun I wasn't keen to eat into the battery life so early on. The head torch was one I had just bought on ebay second-hand, an LED Lenser - it was amazingly powerful and proved well worth its weight. I kept it on right through to the first check even as the sky lightened, as the deeper sections of the woods and hollows we ran into were still dark.

Dawn broke before CP1, giving us a glorious light in the sky right behind us which pretty much everyone stopped to photograph. After a short climb up the flank of a hill called Glog, we had a long and scenic descent with views over the misty valleys before arriving at CP1. There was only water and squash on offer and I didn't stop, seeing as I was carrying a pretty full 3L reservoir and lots of snacks anyway. I got my card punched and stuck with the bunch as they carried on.

After the road-crossing at Llandinam we crossed a bridge and the runners ahead of me either distanced me (being now well warmed-up to their event pace) or turned off route to take a road option to CP2. This is well within the rules, but I decided to stick to the trails, turning left at the end of the stretch of lane that came after the bridge.

It wasn't long before I could see why the road-diversion was a good option. The forest was pretty hard going, quite overgrown, but always passable. I later found out volunteers had cleared the worst of it just before the race. Thanks guys that was pretty saintly of you.

My phone locked me out at one point (saying I had too many failed fingerprint validations - just from phantom logins in my pocket) so I had to stand at a path junction and wait for it to unlock! Fortunately a runner came up behind and passed me taking the right fork so I was able to follow. The phone soon let me back in. The joys of technology! Can't complain though, it did a good job for me on this run and I only really went wrong when I stopped checking the screen frequently enough. 

CP2 was on the long stretch of lane that climbed  from the Servern Way to Glyndwr's way - still through a mixture of lush farmland and patches of wild country.

Around the 21 mile mark and running entirely alone, I came through a very isolated-feeling section of valley, the path leading steeply up the slope of a small hill then diverting to a route that contoured along the southern flank, on a steep slope leading down to the Nant Gwestyn. This was what I would call a sketchy path and in places I remember it being only wide enough for one shoe, as well as being very uneven and exposed. The scenery was gorgeous but I was looking at my feet. It was slow going here, but I managed to regain my shuffling pace (which by now was 13-16 mins a mile) down into an overgrown and boggy hollow where my invaluable GPS found me the footbridge and then the onward route over a ridge to Brithdir and Tan Hinon where I joined the long, long haul on the road up to Pumlumon. This section went on for a while and I was eager for it to be done and dusted, despite the lovely views. The half way mark came at 5.33 but I felt that CP3 was the real half-way, especially with Pumlumon to climb.

When CP3 finally appeared, other runners had caught me up and there were several of us faffing with our drop-bags (and using the only loos on the whole course). As I had at CP2, I got myself a well earned cup of tea and a pot of rice pudding. Packing those rice pots had been a stroke of genius - they went down easy (with the help of a teaspoon carried in the mesh pockets of my trail shorts) and gave me a good boost. All in all I was carrying too much though - perhaps still scarred by running completely out of food and water in a race in Snowdonia the previous summer!

I felt well refreshed after CP3 and I had managed to charge my phone up well at the CP too. I also charged my watch up as this event was probably just too long for it to last on a single charge.

Down the slope from the CP and over the bridge, the climb of Pumlumon began. At first a wide, smooth jeep-track that carried me past marathon distance. I found myself singing some of Sri Chinmoy's marathon songs, before realising that singing as you run in the mountains can look a bit crazy - so I looked around to check there was nobody in sight then carried on singing. It kept me going, as did the rice pudding, the calories from which were working their way into my system. I jogged here and there but mostly the climb was a walk. Out onto open country I followed the GPS and then, out on the plateau of Pumlumon, lost concentration and found I had wondered off route and missed a turning. I jogged back a couple of minutes and found the invisible turn where the route left the trail completely and cut off the long hairpin section of trail, that would have been equally good to follow even though different to the GPS track. I lost a few minutes there but not a lot in the grand scheme of things. I was overtaken by three athletic women, all running well, and between the 4 of us we took 3 different routes over the summit area - diverging and converging every few minutes. I opted for the quad bike track all the way to the summit of Pen Pumlumon Arwystli then followed the Cambrian Way on the right side of the fence to Pen Pumlumon Fawr. I diverted a minute or two to touch the trig, as it was after all the high point of the route. Then I turned north towards Pumlumon Fach before the GPS led me down a steep descent - where the steppy path was easier than the slippery grass for my fatigued and heavy legs - which went north west at first and then turned west running parallel to the Maesnant stream as far as the jeep track that led, slowly but surely, to the road alongside the Nant Y Moch reservoir. I took the GPS-shortcut to avoid some wasted distance where the track looped north before joining the road. The ground was boggy but I am sure it is much worse usually - this has been the driest, hottest summer I can remember. Pumlumon has still managed to remain pretty boggy!

The landscape up on the bulk of Pumlumon was bleak and forbidding at times, and that feeling carried on with the long and draining run on the reservoir road. I still felt good and was enjoying the shifting moods of each change in the landscape. CP4 felt like a significant achievement at 33+ miles (33.5 on the route plan and nearly 35 on my watch, thanks to a couple of minor detours). Again I fuelled up with tea and rice pudding and rolls, probably overeating but keen not to hit the wall through lack of calories. I also got some extra water into the camelbak reservoir so as not to need to fill up again, knowing that at CP5 I might be too tired to make sensible decisions and run without any water just to save the effort of faffing with my backpack.

After some more miles around the lake on the hard, reservoir road, I followed the runners ahead (who were starting to distance me now, as my pace slowed to a pedestrian 16 minutes per mile shuffle) on to a stoney farm-track that led towards a glorious landscape of heather-covered hills that were just starting to catch the fleeting patches of sunlight that were coming with the onset of the afternoon. The prospect of hitting my 13 hour target was definitely on - not on enough to be easy though. I kept managing my mental expectations by telling myself 14 hours would be a good result and reminding myself that only a few weeks before I had not been running at all.

Tired legs carried me through some unavoidable wading through standing water to the shore of a lake and then on to the most dramatic section of the whole route. In some ways like the path above Nant Gwestyn, this section known as The Screes was narrow and exposed with a precipitous slope to the left stoney, and gorse-covered hillside to the right. Again in places it was only wide enough for one shoe, while in other stretches it was crumbling into nothingness. Needless to say I haven't got any pictures as I was concentrating fully on my jelly legs not failing me, as I picked my way at a safe-ish walking pace along the trail. Below the Afon Leri shone in the sun and I could hear the liquid music of numerous waterfalls and cascades in the bottom of its steep-sided gorge. This enchanting place is called LLawr Y Cwm Bach and I hope I get to see it again.

Soon things became easier to follow again - I caught sight of 2 runners - the Shakespeares - up ahead of me and realised my pace was improving and I was catching up again. The long valley-section by the Leri took us slowly but surely to CP5 - another cup of tea and more rice and a change of shoes thanks to my drop-bag. I also decided to empty out the backpack of the excessive food and kit I was carrying, which meant I started the last section - 6.5 miles ish of road - with just under 2 hours to go but my feet feeling better in the looser & softer shoes and my whole body feeling the relief of having lightened the load on my shoulders. As usual after food, I was slow at first - walking the uphill from the CP to Banctroedrhiwseiri where I started to run. I felt I was running well here, though in fact I only managed 9-10 minute miles. That felt fast after the turgid slowness around Nant Y Moch a few hours before. I caught sight of the finish as the skies cleared and stopped to take this shot of Clarach Bay in the distance. The end was in sight, literally.

I kept running - slowly at times but briskly for much of it - passing one runner who had slowed to a very stiff walk and who can blame him after forty-something miles and 6000' of climbing? I felt strong though for the whole final section and came in to the finish - volunteers checking tally cards from a car just by the river mouth at Clarach Bay - in a time of 12:23. I was pretty darn pleased with that, having remained happy the whole way and run well at the start and finish. In between, things got a bit slow and tricky, but I never felt downhearted in this one no matter how tired or slow I got. A truly inspiring and exhilarating run.

Dipping my feet in the sea seemed obligatory as the end-of-route ritual, so I got my shoes off and went for it. Cool salt water is lovely on feet that have covered 46 miles. I had no blisters and as I write this a few days later, no apparent injuries or niggles. It took a lot out of me though and I feel pretty low in energy, so I'll give myself a fortnight recovery before I really start to train for the next challenge. As I ran into the finish a tiny disc of rainbow - a miniature sundog - appeared in the sky over the Irish Sea. 

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