Sugar Loaf - its a mountain not a hill!
My mate Nic (aka Nutty Nic) is a lover of hills so with our trail marathons fast approaching I thought it would be good to get a hilly run in. So I drop her a text along the lines of “take me hill running”. Last year Nic took me on the Hill Tour of Newport, blimey! who knew they had so many!
Excited to see what was planned we arrange to meet in Newport, where we are joined by another 2 club mates, super fitty Tracie and Andy - the Ultra Nut in Sandals. We all jump in one car and head off to Abergavenny…this was news to me and I realise I have no idea of Nics chosen route, although given that Andy was here I should of known it was going to be a challenging one. We park up in Abergavenny leisure centre under the shadow of Sugar Loaf Mountain – Yes that’s right, Mountain, not hill or mound or even bump, Mountain. As much as I was apprehensive I was also excited. It had only been a few weeks back I was on top of Skirrid Mountain looking across to Sugar Loaf and making plans to hike it and now here I was attempting to run it.
Nic has entered Ben Nevis ultra-marathon later on in the year so was using today to practice her map reading skills. So we follow her lead and head out of the car park and up a few residential streets until we hit country lanes. From here there’s a lovely trail run up through woodlands until you reach open moorland where wild horses great us. Nic intermittently checks our route and soon we find Sugar Loaf looming over us. I’m struggling to keep up and try taking in the views to distract me, the rolling hills of Usk Valley and Brecon Beacons are pretty sights to take in. We check the map again and decide to take the most direct route up. And up and up we go until we hit the craggy top. I’ve always wondered what it feels like to run a skyline, this gives me a brief glimpse, the term mountain goat springs to mind as we clamber over and across to the summit. Unfortunately no sooner do we reach the trig point and the wind picks up. We struggle to take our obligatory selfies and stand no chance of admiring views as the cloud drops, obscuring the Severn Estuary, Colstwolds and even the nearby Skirrid. We clamber back down a rocky side onto the grassy path. Nic takes a brief glance at her map and we head right along the opposite side of the ridge. It gets quiet steep and slippery here, not even the thick gorse can stop us from skidding and sliding, thankfully there is a fence and gate to stop us careering onto the road.
We spot a runner in a nearby field and decide to follow his lead instead of running along the roads and soon find our way back to the carpark. The run in total was 8 miles with elevation gain of 1703ft. Very tough but enjoyable morning out.
See link below for video of our run – Curtesy of super fitty Tracie and her new Go Pro.
