Congratulations Martin, great run & glad you enjoyed it.
Last Friday dawned & saw Martin Cliffe rise with serious intent on his mind. He had e-mailed me earlier in the week notifying me of his plans to tackle the longest of the Cafe’s challenges. At once I knew that the previous best time set by myself & Paul Jones during June’s Reach out for Nepal day would soon be toast!
Martin, a friend of ours, is of course also a top end Fell runner & can regularly be seen in the leading pack of racers across Snowdonia’s fell racing calendar as well as on Mountains further afield. He has form on Siabod too winning the Siabod race itself a few years back, put simply he is a class or two above me.
I haven’t had a full report from Martin as yet but like all challengers (including me) he has commented that the slog & false summits on the Challenge’s final climb (Moel Siabod from the South) was the most arduous part of the route but at least you know you are heading for home (aka the Cafe).
So just how fast was he, well looking at his Garmin stats. I am struggling to equate them to our splits but it looks pretty clear that he beasted the descents whilst maintaining good pace on the ascents, this all led to a total time of 5 Hours 49 Minutes & 39 Seconds some 38 minutes ahead of Paul’s & mine time, so well done Martin, if a record is going to succumb then you did it in style!
A call to arms, will Martin hold it for as long as I did (over 6 years with 3 different times), my thoughts are maybe not, the Challenge has become increasingly popular this year, Martin commented ‘it’s a great route’ which indeed it is. It is also (at over 23 miles with 8,800 feet of ascent) a great training route for those Ultra runners amongst us, so why not give it a try, you will earn your tea & cake on the house.
Once again congratulations Martin!