The snow arrived in Capel Curig earlier than expected on Saturday morning & helped me cement a plan I’d already settled on during the drive in, ‘no breakfast please, I’m off for a run’.

I was lucky enough to be breaking trail in a light covering of snow & flakes falling all around me as I initially circled West around Capel before heading North East to Llyn Bychan thoroughly enjoying myself. This joy turned to a bit of concern as I turned towards Swallow Falls & into a biting headwind for the first time. Hands soon froze & had to be wiggled as my thoughts turned to ‘be vigilant Paul, this could turn serious’ but as you do I ran on. Finally I delivered a trump card ‘pull your right hand (Steroid injections into it the previous day, a delayed response to my fall back in June) into the sleeve of your waterproof’, it worked enough to ebb away the concern & I was able to complete the 11 miler. The return leg had seen me encounter footprints & tyre prints, I no longer felt strictly alone but it mattered little it had been a good morning & a massive Bacon sandwich was my reward.

Whilst eating this John Rowell got an e-mail from his ‘framer’, Julian, to say ‘Siabod Café centre page news on the BBC Wales web-site’, I almost choked on my Bacon, ‘shit, what’s that about? What have we done wrong’. Our crime transpired to be that a customer had taken photo’s from the Café of the snow, well that was a relief, free advertising, a quiet weekend soon became very busy.

That didn’t stop me getting out again on Sunday morning on what was a simply glorious day. 10 mile runs don’t come much better than that & capped a 3rd consecutive total of 50+ miles for the week. My goal for the year of 2,000 firmly on track but even more importantly my lungs feel huge, my running feels easy, Everest Marathon here I come, the steroids have even allowed me to cross my fingers, just.

Packing afternoon yesterday, never easy as anyone who’s been on an expedition will know, weigh this bag, change things, weigh, weigh & weigh again…. ‘Dorina, don’t talk to me now I’m scratching my head’. Finally a packed system was in place together with notes on how to re-configure bags once in Kathmandu for the Lukla flight. Mama & the boys installed at home have clear instructions on how to keep the house warm whilst we shiver in our tents so almost everything is now in place. Now where are those luggage labels?

We are both really excited about the trip itself, as you must be too as there’ll be no more blogs for a month. If you want to follow progress of the race itself see Marion at the café as she has threatened to track me & she normally comes up with the goods.

Good luck to the Organisers, their team & of course to all my fellow runners too.