Sign up to our free Living Well email for advice on living a happier, healthier and longer lifeLive your life healthier and happier with our free weekly Living Well newsletterLive your life healthier and happier with our free weekly Living Well newsletterThe Corn Du, Pen y Fan, Cribyn and Fan y Big loop is spectacularly, beautifully and horribly brutal. It’s essentially a really long assault on your legs, disguised as a scenic jaunt through the Brecon Beacons’ finest ridgelines. It’s a gentle incline through Taf Fechan Forest. We’re going at a steady pace, our strides short, and my pigtails bouncing under my woolly hat (my mother, whenever she sees me like this post-run, asks me why I am dressed like a child). This feels fine so far. This might, I think, be an okay run today. Inês points out the upcoming elevation on her phone and I realise that I am very much wrong. There’s a sharp turn right and we continue running uphill. To our left, thick pines pierce the mist, the mountains dark behind them. This feels gentle, easy enough, and I’m over-confident. What I don’t realise is that the huge mountain to our left is more than a scenic backdrop and is, in fact, what we’ll be cresting the summit of. Pushing our way through the gate, we see a bridge below us over Lower Neuadd Reservoir, a shimmering white ribbon that cuts through the mountains and rushes below us. Where the light catches, the water flares gold, then vanishes, pulled back into the cool, quiet rush. We cross the bridge and it’s time to go up. And up. And up some more. I stop to catch my breath and try to regain feeling in my calves, then push on with the ascent. The stunning backdrop behind me lowers into mist the farther we climb. The ridges left in the grass from the many people who’ve climbed before us are spaced wide apart, so every step feels like I’m hauling myself from one leg to the other.I’m bloody knackered already. Several people pass us, heading the other way, which concerns me. Have we done this the wrong way round? We were given a circular route, but it never told us which direction we were supposed to run in. open image in gallery‘The stunning backdrop behind me lowers into mist the farther we climb’ (Natalie Holborow)The mist becomes thicker, obscuring the valley below, so there’s no longer any point in stopping to take photographs (or pretend to, if only to catch my breath). There’s a wooden fence we reach out to grip, which has tilted almost horizontally outwards from all the other hikers and runners clinging to it over time. A thin sheen of ice clings to a warning sign. Whatever it’s telling us, we probably already know. By now, frost is beginning to form on our woolly hats like crusted salt. We eventually agree to slow to a walk to the summit; the quad-burn and the face-freeze is too much. The path clambers, a restless muscle of earth and stone, twisting its spine towards the sky. The rock face is sheer and slippery; years of climbing have left the land peeled open to the icy winds. It’s eerie, muffled and close, my breath a small ghost in the frozen air. We stop, stretch and breathe deeply. Filling the lungs is tough to do up here (that’s my excuse, anyway). We take a right. The earth is wet and cold beneath my feet, but I don’t care. I’m just relieved not to still be climbing steeply upwards. That’s not to say there’s no incline, however, because there absolutely is, but it’s gradual. I quickly glance at my insulin pump to see what my blood sugar readings are (hard efforts can sometimes trigger a glycogen dump, sending my blood sugar skyward). The cold has decided to throw a spanner in the works; the continuous glucose monitor in my arm has stopped working in the cold temperatures, and a curt error message flashes at me: Lost sensor signal. I cancel it with a sigh. Fortunately for me, there’s an old-school blood glucose meter squeezed into my pocket for emergencies. I crouch on the dark rock, icy wind battering my face. A quick finger prick, a squeeze, and the blood comes easily, which is no surprise, given my heart is currently attempting to launch itself out of my ribcage. We still have 12K to go, so I’m hoping for a slightly elevated reading rather than having to battle an oncoming hypoglycaemic episode at this point. 11.8 mmol. Slightly high, which is expected given the physical exertion we’ve just pushed ourselves through, but that’s fine. It’ll come down quickly over the course of the run, as my heart rate drops on more level terrain. And if I do go hypo in the next 12K, my pockets are straining with packets of Clif Bloks. This is in addition to the two packets of Fruit Pastilles stuffed down either side of my bra. If nothing, I’m determined to go down chewing. open image in galleryViews during the loop of the Corn Du, Pen y Fan, Cribyn and Fan y Big (Natalie Holborow)This ridgeline carries on for 3.5km. The cold is vicious. It sinks its teeth in and shakes – a bit like [my dog] Ted when he’s got hold of one of my compression socks. Eventually, we spot a line of people, shifting from foot to foot and looking strangely overjoyed to be standing up here in the cold. At the front, they take turns grinning beside what appears to be, at best, an unremarkable rock. I turn to Inês, baffled. She points at the sign: Pen y Fan. Two thousand, nine hundred and seven feet of elevation later, we’ve somehow summited the highest peak in South Wales entirely by accident. We opt out of joining the queue. We’re both wondering how many of those photographs are going to end up as Tinder profile pictures. Instead, we snap a quick selfie with nothing behind us but snow and rock, our hats crusted with frost and cheeks pinched red by the wind. In the photograph, there’s somehow no trace of the exhaustion in our faces, and no hint of the fact that our shoes have quietly transformed into small, portable reservoirs of ice water. What we’re feeling isn’t euphoria, but more a mixture of surprise with a trace of very slight smugness. Despite living in Wales for all of my life, I’ve never actually visited this place at all. We snap a quick selfie with nothing behind us but snow and rock, our hats crusted with frost and cheeks pinched red by the windFinally, we begin to descend. You know that euphoric sensation when you’ve been desperate for a pee for hours, and then, finally, relief washes through you, leaving nothing but bliss in its wake? It’s kind of like that. But in my calves. They’ve spent most of this run clenched, furious and tight; now, at last, they begin to release. It’s heavenly, but it’s short-lived. Because, of course, what goes down must go back up when you’re in between mountains. We reach the saddle between Pen y Fan and Cribyn, only to realise that yet another climb awaits us; this one apparently worth it for incredible views. Except, thanks to the unrelenting fog, those views remain an abstract concept. “Oh, for God’s sake,” I mutter, reaching the summit. I am so bored of mist. It’s not long before we have to slow to a walk again. In trail running, this is quite refreshingly acceptable because the terrain dictates the terms. If it’s steep enough, rocky enough, or punishing enough, you walk. There’s no shame to that. You’re free to do whatever nature tells you to. I have no idea what my pace is at this point. I glance at my watch, but it only gives me elapsed time and distance, and I’m too cold, too tired, and too mathematically incompetent to work it out. Which, in itself, is freeing. Today is all about surrendering and going with it; however, I can. open image in gallery’Our feet plunge into freezing pools and I wish I’d worn better socks’ (Natalie Holborow)This saddle is boggy, so be prepared. Pack spare socks and a change of shoes to leave in the car; your shrivelled toes will thank you for it. Our feet plunge into freezing pools and I wish I’d worn better socks than the £3 Disney ones from Primark I’d fished from my drawer in the dark this morning. We clamber up, pressing our hands to the damp rocks to steady ourselves. Progress is slow. Cribyn stands at 2,608ft, so it’s no small feat either. The fog is so thick, it’s like looking down into a pool of milk. Below, the sky offers nothing but smoky cloud, its valleys swallowed entirely: raw, bright, untranslatable. Some inspiration at last. If I can’t see anything, I can at least try to create something out of nothing. The whole time we’re running, Inês and I frequently turn our necks to check if the other is still there, depending on who’s ahead. As a woman, you barely even realise any more that you do it automatically. It’s a given that you’ll look over your shoulder often, either for your running companion or for someone who might be following you. This might sound a bit dramatic. It’s not. And I wish this wasn’t the case. There’s not a single woman I know who also runs that hasn’t felt unsafe at some point while running. There have been times when I’ve been shouted at out of cars or from the side of the road by groups of men. There was that time I had to change my regular running route because a man started appearing in the same spot to watch and shout at me while I was doing my interval training. And it doesn’t just happen in the running space either; I once had to email a yoga teacher to report a man who kept moving his hand onto me during the class. I was too anxious to ever go back. For many women, the darker nights in winter don’t just bring a drop in temperature but a drop in freedomFor many women, the darker nights in winter don’t just bring a drop in temperature but a drop in freedom. We adjust our plans, reconsider our routes, and the simple act of stepping outside for a run becomes a calculation of risk versus reward. And I hate that this is our reality. It forces some into a compromise: switching to a treadmill in a stuffy, overlit gym or, worse, hanging up their running shoes entirely until the clocks leap forward again. And so, when the London Marathon announced its return to its usual April slot, after its brief pandemic-induced autumn run, it wasn’t just an adjustment to the race calendar. It was, by many women, seen as a sentence: months of training through the cold, in the dark, in conditions that for many men are merely inconvenient but for many women are downright dangerous. open image in galleryFreezing but free: Natalie Holborow out running on Pen Y Fan, South Wales (Natalie Holborow)We don’t care so much about the weather as we do about the knot in our stomachs when we realise the path ahead is empty. There’s the instinctive check over the shoulder. The keys in the fist. The endless calculations of where is safe, when is safe, and whether safe enough is ever actually safe at all. ‘Wild Running’ by Natalie Holborow is published by Seren on 15 September, pre-order now
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Wild running gives me freedom, but I’m always looking over my shoulder
