Rest and Relaxation

Back from an excellent holiday in Wales. The journey to Snowdonia wasn't half bad - some nice country roads to wind down in the car, much more interesting than the usual motorway fare that I'm confronted with! The cottage Sarah and I stayed in was superb - three bedroomed, log fire and pool table equipped and possessed of a generous kitchen. It was a little chilly, but we remedied that by having log fires burning strongly each night!

Snowdonia is a stunning area - every time I come I'm impressed by the peaks in the area. They're more aesthetically pleasing than many in the Lake District or Highlands - especially Snowdon, with its pyramid of a summit. They're also big - fifteen in the region top the magical 3000ft mark. Given it was meant to be a relaxing holiday, we shyed away from the really big ones, and instead went up Yr Afan, a 2500fter in the Snowdon range, on Saturday. The walk started at about 140ft above sea level, so there was plenty of feet of ascent involved (and a bit of scrambling to keep things interesting). Navigationally it was pretty easy, even if we did take to X-Country on a couple of occasions. No visibility at the very top, but apart from that the views were pretty impressive. Another mountain to add to the list. We pub-grubbed it following the climb, and fish, chips and garlic bread rarely tasted so good!

The next day it was off to Conwy Castle. This is a proper, slab sided brute of a fortification. No fancy Gothic crenellations here, just thick walls and strong defenes. Very impressive! A trip into Llanberis rounded out the day, before returning to the cottage for our final evening. An excellent trip, with plenty fitted in (including an epic snooker match that went down to the wire).

It's a full (and tough) training week this week. It's started well though - a 1700m swim on Tuesday morning with a main set of 4 x 300m on 5:00 intervals yielded pleasing results (in the 4:15 region) without too much in the way of effort, whilst a turbo on Tuesday evening brought with it goo 15:00 minutes at 150BPM or above, and another 20 minutes at 133BPM or above (zones 2 and 1 respectively). Running this morning, and it was a hilly 9k interval session - 30 seconds sprinting with 4:30 easy running. Sounds like masses of recovery, but it was damn draining. A good session - roll on the club swim tonight.

26/01/2010