The Brutal Half 2026 — Race Report
20 September 2026 · #Shadows2Giants
Nine Hours, Twenty-Eight Minutes, and One Wrong Turn at a Power Station
The Brutal Half — Llanberis, 19 September 2026
Four years ago I retired from triathlon. I was younger, I was fitter, and I had a fifth place at an extreme triathlon to prove it. Saturday was my first serious triathlon since. I finished 32nd of 46 in 9 hours 28 minutes and 6 seconds (and I counted every second of pain…): and to top it all, I got lost on the way to a mountain!
This was never meant to be my main event. The Brutal is a 'B' race — a rehearsal, a data-gathering exercise, a chance to find out what breaks before it matters. The 'A' race is the Himalayan XTri in May 2027: a 3.4km night swim, 165km on the bike, and a 43km mountain run to 4,000m. Everything I did on Saturday was to learn something for that.
I learned plenty. Not all of it flattering.
How not to prepare for an extreme triathlon
Let's start with the week previous, because that week didn't do me any favours. I was building a new bike. A Cervélo Soloist, from a bare frame, assembled over the previous weekends and the evenings after work. In the final week that meant at least two 1:30am finishes and 5am alarms. The bike got a twenty-minute test ride on the Thursday night. Twenty minutes. That was the sum total of my experience on the machine I was about to race for four hours.
Friday, I sorted my mountain kit at work. I left Manchester at 3:15pm, already late, then detoured via Warrington because I'd realised I was missing a foil blanket and a blister kit — both on the mandatory list, both non-negotiable, no kit no registration.
Due to time constraints, dinner was enroute to the event and shamefully a McDonald's. Traditionally this is where I'd be eating industrial quantities of pasta and loading carbs. I would like to state for the record that a Big Mac contains carbohydrate. Please don't ask any follow up questions about McDonald's, as it isn't — and shouldn't be — my specialist subject!
I arrived at the Event Field with barely enough time to pass the kit check and make the 7pm briefing. The tent was packed and many people were standing… I found a seat and tried to be friendly by introducing myself to the two people sat next to me — I felt a bit fraudulent having only signed up for the Half distance event; one individual was doing the Full and the other the Double. What I did take away from this engagement was that the returning individual doing the Double offered some advice for the swim. The water would be freezing, but get in early, swim out to the buoy for the floating start, and acclimatise. The temperature would spike your heart rate, and it would take circa five minutes to settle and for you to breathe calmly.
After the briefing, I found a Spar (the shop, not a relaxing experience, which is exactly what I should have been doing!). I stopped in Llanberis for breakfast supplies, including a bag of pork scratchings that will become relevant later. Then the Airbnb — parking was a nightmare, and I ended up carrying all my kit roughly 50 metres up a steep hill. Seven or eight trips later, I started sorting out the rest of my kit. I eventually got to bed at 11pm! Up again at 4am. Shower to wake myself up. Overnight oats with Greek yogurt and honey, made the night before — the one thing I'd done properly. Then a cup of tea and a banana.
I prepared my nutrition, before checking, double checking and gathering my things. I cycled the three minutes, mostly downhill, to the event field. Strava logged it: 977 metres, seven minutes, 53 calories. It remains the only part of the day I would describe as comfortable.
I am a director in the construction industry, where I rigorously plan things for a living. I certainly wouldn't let any of my teams move forwards if they tried to plan an event like I had executed it thus far…
The swim — 34:19
Llyn Padarn was officially 12°C. I have my doubts.
Two laps, 1.2 miles, wetsuits compulsory. I swam without socks, gloves or a hood, which turned out to be exactly right — cold enough to notice, but not cold enough to suffer. 1,770 metres at around 1:54 per 100m, and the advice from the briefing was worth every second: get in early, get out to the buoy, let the heart rate come back down. 34:19 put me 20th out of the water, about a minute and a half behind the eventual winner. It's the best I placed all day. This is an important thing to remember — the race is not won or lost in the water.
On the final lap I found myself drafting a pair of feet and realised the feet were wearing trainers. Full running shoes. In a lake. In a triathlon. I can only assume they were training for a swim-run. I'd like to report that I dropped them. Unfortunately, this individual must have had a motor fitted, as they were quick. Beaten in open water by a person in shoes is a sentence I did not expect to write.
The bike — 4:04:49
Two laps of 29 miles — 93.6km all in — with 1,262 metres of climbing, on open roads. Average power 161 watts, average cadence 76rpm, 2,644 calories. Four hours and five minutes of work.
The first lap came with torrential rain. Proper Eryri rain, the kind that arrives sideways and feels like a thousand needles hitting your face — I spent that lap negotiating with the available grip.
Then came Pen-y-Pass. The mountain forecast had south-westerly winds of 35 to 45mph with stronger gusts, and the Llanberis Pass funnels them beautifully. I was genuinely fighting to stay on the bike. A 7.58kg machine on 49mm-deep wheels is a wonderful thing right up until the mountain decides to push it sideways. The forecast had reported gusts that could 'knock you off your feet'. I was leaning the bike as much as I dared to stay upright on the edge of the tyre while trying to descend, and the computer caught a top speed of 55.3kph on the way down the pass. There were mixed opinions as to whether this was crossing what was safe. But to be fair to the organisers, this is a part of the world where the weather can change in minutes and without warning. Hence the mandatory kit requirements for the mountain.
Here's the number I'm proudest of and the number that stings, and they're the same number. I rode 4 hours and 5 minutes without once stopping or unclipping. On the first lap, two riders passed me. Two. I'd come out of the swim 20th, passed two people in T1, and at the end of the first bike lap I was effectively holding 20th. I was riding like it.
On the second lap, about ten people went past — had I gone out too quick; did the loss of computer data affect my confidence; or was it just a lack of training…
The fade, in watts
Both laps registered on the same Strava segment, so they are directly comparable. This is the most useful thing the data gave me all weekend:
Bike lap | Time | Average power |
Lap 1 | 1:54:11 | 182W |
Lap 2 | 2:08:36 | 143W |
Difference | 14:25 slower | 39W down |
A 21% drop in power output across four hours. The climbs tell the same story: the Nant Gwynant ascent (6.3km, 394m) took 27:08 at 193W first time round and 33:15 at 148W the second. Pen-y-Pass itself went from 8:26 at 189W to 10:05 at 151W.
Lap one was the wet one, and lap one was still the fast one. That is not a weather problem. That is a training and an endurance problem, and the numbers do not allow me to pretend otherwise.
Strava also awarded me 228 achievements on that bike leg, which sounds heroic until you remember that it was the first time I had ever ridden the course. Every segment is a personal best when you have never been there before. My peak five-second power was 585 watts, which I suspect was the moment a gust tried to put me into a dry stone wall.
I rode straight through the bike aid station. Twice. At roughly 48kph both times. In fairness to me, it sits at the bottom of a fast descent with speed bumps just before it — you'd need to commit to stopping a mile out. In fairness to the organisers, I was carrying plenty of my own nutrition and never needed it.
What my body had to say about all this
New bike, new position, new cranks, new shoes, new pedals — and a riding position roughly 22mm lower at the bars than the bike I'd spent years validating.
One hour in: back complaining. I had to stretch up tall and pull it straight.
Two and a half hours: left forearm aching. Only the left. Hands fine.
Four hours: right knee starting to ache.
Nothing dramatic, nothing that stopped me. But read those timestamps against the lap splits and the story writes itself: a position I haven't adapted to holds up fine for ninety minutes and then starts charging interest.
Beyond the race, I need a bike fit I can trust. That's now top of the list.
T2, and then T2(b)
Transitions at the Brutal aren't the slick barefoot sprints of a road triathlon. There's a full kit change each time, a mandatory hi-viz vest for the bike leg, and then a second stage T2 where you collect your mountain pack and pass a compulsory medical check with a qualified medic before you're allowed anywhere near Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon).
The lake lap — 1:06:25
New for 2026: the old steep tarmac climb has been replaced with technical trail due to a road closure, and the lap has grown from 5.2 to 5.67 miles, so nobody in the field has a comparable time from previous years.
The first 3km along the water were genuinely quick, around 5:30/km, and running that well off a four-hour bike leg is the thing I'll take from the day. Then the trail turns up and gets technical, and the pace went with it. The lap averaged 7:17/km overall — which sounds like a collapse until you see that the 'flat' lake lap climbs 201 metres. It is flat in the way that a staircase is flat if you only photograph the landings.
The aid station at the top of the climb was the only aid station I stopped at all day. It was very, very welcome. Then back into transition for T2(b), which brings me to the low point of my day, and the funniest thing in this report.
The Dinorwig Incident
I hadn't studied the route. I'd assumed it would all be marked, and in fairness it largely was. But I was six and a half hours in, taking verbal directions from a medic, and my comprehension was not what it had been at 7am.
Instead of heading past the train station to pick up the Llanberis Path, I went down the wrong road. Found a roundabout. Turned right, exactly as I understood I'd been told. Ran 750 metres with growing confidence. And then arrived at the maintenance entrance of Dinorwig power station.
There is no summit at Dinorwig power station. There is a gate!
I retraced my steps all the way back to the bike dismount line and asked someone for directions like a tourist. Call it 1.5km and a decent chunk of my dignity. The engineer in me would like to note that I had found my way to a 1,728MW pumped-storage hydroelectric scheme — buried inside Elidir Fawr, in what is reckoned to be the largest man-made cavern in Europe, and the biggest civil engineering project the UK government had ever commissioned at the time it was built. The triathlete in me would like that struck from the record. My Strava file for the mountain leg reads 16.5km against a 15km course, and the description I wrote that evening simply says: "I ran the wrong way and only realised when I got to a Power Station."
Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) — 3:22:29
The mountain went on forever. Poles came out early. Three-quarters of the way up I stopped to put my Marmot waterproof on, because it had gone from cold to genuinely freezing. There is no aid station and no water on Yr Wyddfa — everything you drink up there, you carry with you.
16.5 kilometres and 977 metres of climbing, and my moving time was 2 hours 30. The elapsed time was 3 hours 14. Somewhere in there I spent the best part of forty minutes not moving at all, which brings me neatly to the crowd.
What I hadn't anticipated was the numbers. Hundreds of walkers, all of them cheering, all of them brilliant, and all of them standing on the only path that I wanted to navigate - my own Hillary Step. My Hiking quickly is one thing. Hiking quickly through a queue is another.
At the summit I put the poles away, got out the pork scratchings, and had one of the more surreal moments of my racing life: a Labrador spotted them and made a determined bid, very nearly taking its owner off her feet in the process. Full credit to that dog for getting up Snowdon at all. And credit to the owner; anyone who has ever tried to get a Labrador to do anything of their own free will, will liken it to a three-year-old strolling up to the top of the mountain without encouragement. And no, I didn't share any of my pork scratchings! There is no aid station on that mountain and I had carried them 1,085 metres above sea level. The dog can bring its own!
Then I ran the descent wherever the terrain and walkers allowed. It's technical in places and I nearly turned my ankle several times, which felt like a fair trade for the time it gave back.
The numbers
Point in the race | My position |
Swim | 20th |
T1 | 18th |
Bike | 30th |
Starting Snowdon | 29th |
Finish | 32nd |
Twelve places went on the bike. One came back on the lake lap. Three went on the mountain.
The winner completed the Half in 5:51:22. An extraordinary ride, and an even better run up and down Snowdon. To put the toughness of the course into perspective, the winner of the Full distance race completed it in 14:01:47.
The honest debrief
18th onto the bike. 30th onto the run. That's the race in two numbers, and the average watts explain the gap between them: 182W on lap one, 143W on lap two. The bike wasn't slow — it faded, on an unadapted position after a week of building the thing at 1:30am.
The mountain was slow too, but it only cost me three places. I had assumed it was the disaster of the day. The data says otherwise, and I would rather be corrected by a spreadsheet now than by a Himalayan ridge in May next year.
So the to-do list writes itself.
1. Get a bike fit I can trust, after a few more long test rides where I change one thing at a time and go past two hours every time.
2. Build the endurance to hold 180 watts (plus) for two laps rather than one. That is the whole race, right there. And there will be a lot more climbing in the Himalayas.
3. Learn the mountain. Don't assume it'll be marked. Know the route well enough that a tired brain taking verbal directions isn't the single point of failure.
4. Sort the tech. I only worked out my Karoo the night before. It handled the GPX well, but the file was a single lap, so navigation quit after lap one, and I had no climb countdowns or gradient information. The Apple Watch Ultra died at about six hours; I saved the activity after the lake lap to protect the data and recorded the mountain on my phone instead.
5. Sleep. Radical, and deprived, I know!
One more thing
I finished, collected my medal, and set off to walk the ten minutes back to the Airbnb. At which point I should mention that both my watch and my phone were now completely flat. It was going dark. And I had not, at any point in the preceding thirty hours, paid meaningful attention to where I was staying.
I have never navigated so badly in a single day. Twice, to be precise. I'd like to think the second time was the more forgivable — it was dark, after all. My legs, which had been stiffening since the finish line, did not share this view as I explored several promising and ultimately incorrect residential streets. Nine and a half hours of racing, and the hardest navigational problem of the day was a residential street in Llanberis.
Why any of this matters
In May 2027 I'll be in Nepal for the Himalayan XTri: a night swim, 165km on the bike, and 43km of mountain running to 4,000m. Higher, longer and considerably less forgiving than anything Wales can produce. For scale, Saturday's bike leg was 93km with 1,262 metres of climbing. The XTri is nearly double the distance, and it starts at an altitude where the air itself has stopped cooperating.
I'm doing it as part of #Shadows2Giants, trying to raise £100,000 for Park Lane Special School. Saturday was preparation — a full-dress rehearsal that exposed exactly what I needed it to expose, eight months, or 230 days, before it really counts.
That's the point of a 'B' race. You don't do them to win. You do them to find out what breaks. Turns out it was my sense of direction!
Comments