Darth Mannion 2016. Pwll Du Gallery 2.

 

Pwll Du Gallery 2, hot on the heels of the earlier posted gallery. I took over 100 photos of the Pwll Du section of the Darth Mannion 2016. So I have made two galleries so you can see all the action from this extreme Gower running challenge. This is the second gallery – Pwll Du Gallery 2.  You can see all the previous pictures from the first gallery – Pwll Du Gallery 1.

You can also read about the Pwll Du section of the Darth Mannion Beach & Swamp Run Challenge here.

This is my last post from the Darth Mannion 2016, but you can be sure I will be down there capturing the action next year, DimExcuses.

Darth Mannion 2016. Pwll Du Gallery 1.

I took over 100 photos of the Pwll Du section of the Darth Mannion 2016. So I have made two galleries so you can see all the action from this extreme Gower running challenge. This is the first gallery – Pwll Du Gallery 1.  You can see all the remaining pictures in the second gallery – Pwll Du Gallery 2.

You can also read about the Pwll Du section of the Darth Mannion Beach & Swamp Run Challenge here.

Have a look through and see who you can spot making the cold plunge, DimExcuses.

 

Darth Mannion 2016. Pwll Du River Run.

Once again the Darth Mannion Beach & Swamp Run Challenge was an epic affair. Pwll Du saw the deepest and most exciting river run. I was there to give you a glimpse of the action.

I had already seen the runners at Pennard Castle, you can read about that here, and see the full gallery here. That was a steep dune decent, this was a much more watery affair.

I arrived just in time to see Dom finishing the river run.

While Alun was having a quick think about starting his cold dip.

Others were just taking the plunge.

That was one deep and cold start to the river run that runs from Pwll Du beach all the way to the ford, before the soaked runners make their way to Brandy Cove on the last leg of this extreme run.

The regulators and veterans were taking it all in their stride,their waste deep in freezing water stride.

Putting a brave face on cold legs rubbing against submerged objects along the irregular river bed.

The field was very spread out so runners were still running into the valley from Pennard Cliffs as others were deep into their river run.

The entrance to the start of the river run was soon seeing a queue to jump into the frigid waters.

Katy and her crowd were being particularly noisey about their river entry.

Having a moan about it being cold. It was only nine degrees!

The river was soon full with runners.

Some had the tactic of taking their top off and carrying it above their head to keep it dry.

Some others like Kirsten here just got soaked through.

Here is some more runners utilizing the shirt carrying tactic.

The only thing is you have to get in the river and keep that top dry at the same time, like Rhian here was discovering.

Even the toughest regulators were carrying their kit on their heads.

I can’t tell you what Joel here said to me as he passed.

Best just summarize that he went past, cheered on by the massive crowd of one man and his dog.

This river run is immensely challenging. Knees and joints are stiff and sore at this point as most of the cross country half marathon is behind them.  But now sore joints become cold joints and clothes get wet, heavy and energy sapping.

This is the deepest river run on the Darth Mannion and it is the longest period that the runners have to face in the cold water. That doesn’t stop them having fun and giving me the thumbs up. A big thumbs up is guaranteed to get you featured in the DimExcuses blog.

That’s the spirit!

Others were just focused on keeping their packs dry.

Everyone is relieved to get to the end of the river run at Pwll Du and get out at the ford.

I must be a great feeling to climb that bank and know it is only the run around to Brandy Cove, one more sea submersion and the climb up to Pwll Du Head to go!

The organizers of the Darth Mannion ensure that you are safe and supported in each peleton. Here the regulators are making sure their group get back home and dry. Well as dry as you can be at the end of a river run!

The river run at Pwll Du once again proved to be an entertaining section on this year’s Darth Mannion. I have over a hundred photos from the river run, so I will split these up into two albums (Pwll Du Gallery 1 and Pwll Du Gallery 2) and post them in two further blog posts. Click on the links in the brackets above to view the galleries, DimExcuses.

Darth Mannion 2016. Pennard Castle Full Gallery.

The Darth Mannion Beach & Swamp Run Challenge is a half marathon across South Gower with river runs and sea submersions. Here is the full gallery of all 80 odd photos I took at the Pennard Castle section of this epic race.

You can read about the Pennard Castle section of the Darth Mannion 2016 here.

Have a good look through the gallery below and see if you can spot yourself or anyone you knew running, DimExcuses.

The Darth Mannion 2016. The Force Awakens, Pennard Castle.

This is the seventh year of the Darth Mannion Beach & Swamp Run Challenge, and my second year photographing it. You can read what happened last year, here. This year I am writing three posts on this half marathon across Gower with river runs and full sea submersions.

I have already written about the Official DimExcuses runners #Team Bruvver, you can read about their exploits, here. This is the second post and features all the excitement in the steep dune descent from Pennard Castle into Three Cliffs Bay.

When my girlfriend Sharon, myself and our dog Molly arrived at Pennard Castle we were shocked to see an exceptional high tide had flooded the valley floor entirely. It was a spectacular site for us as we often see this view, but never like this.

Luckily we were an hour early and the tide fell back in time for the runners to pass. In the meantime Molly was keeping a close eye on the course.

It was about 10:15 when the first runners arrived at Pennard Castle.  They were already about 7 km into their grueling challenge.

The runners come across Pennard Golf Course and pass Pennard Castle before dropping straight down the steep dune side into the valley below.  There is a particularly steep hard section before you get into the deep sand and it took some navigating.

With not everyone keeping their footing.

There were many familiar local faces. Katie below shows her husband Simon that he is not the only extreme sport nutter in the Gibbion household.  

Pausing to catch a breath, before charging on down the dune.

There were plenty of official Darth Mannion Regulators, helpers and veteran runners to help the runners new to the Beach & Swamp Challenge.  Alun here has several Darths under his belt.

And here is another regulator stopping to help the newbies through this difficult section.

The runners were coming down the dune thick and fast now.

There were five peloton groups of varying ability and over 120 runners.

It is a tough race but there were a lot of smiles among the grimaces.

And extreme concentration getting down that bare earth section to the softer dunes below.

The regulators did a fantastic job of getting their pelotons down safe.

Once on the soft sand it is plane sailing all the way to the valley and you can get some good bounces out of each step.

It wasn’t long before Darth himself was charging through with the elite runner peloton.

The remaining pelotons weren’t far behind.

Even though it is a big field all the runners were through within twenty minutes of each other.

Next through was Dom from Clyne Riders, with experience on his side from successfully completing the Darth last year too…

…and there he goes.

There was the odd stumble…

…but he’s ok folks.

Some runners were just literally flying!

Once again a great race and definitely worth watching it at Pennard Castle.  I have the river at Pwll Du Bay still to report on and I have over 80 pictures from this Pennard Castle section that I am posting in a separate gallery. So if you can’t see yourself here it might be worth looking there. I just need to get on photo editing, DimExcuses.

A taste of the Darth Mannion 2016. Team Bruvver.

Do you want to know what yesterday’s Darth Mannion Beach and Swamp Challenge was like? Hot off the press we have the experience of the DimExcuses runners – Team Bruvver.

Not afraid to do their own stunts, Team Bruvver is made up of my brothers Chris & Steve, joined by my brothers in law Matt & Jamie. Note my french bulldog Molly giving wise advice from the sidelines.

The Darth Mannion is a half marathon across Gower with several river runs and full sea submersions. Visit the official Darth Mannion site here, to learn more. I have almost 200 photos to sort through from the event and will posting these over the next week. Until then checkout the experiences of this brave few.

Here they are about 7 km into the race charging down the steep sand dune from Pennard Castle in Three Cliffs Valley.

Nice to see them running as a team.  Taking careful steps on that steep decent.

Here you can see how epic that decent is with the mighty Three Cliffs Bay in the background.

The Darth Mannion is a sprawling Gower course, but I was only able to support the team at two locations, so once they had left Pennard Castle I shot over to Pwll Du to see them do the final river run. Jamie now leading the way, but the team very tight together.

The initial cold splash down!

All four runners making the frigid dip.

A mixture of grimaces and smiles. Mainly grimaces.

That Pwll Du section is a long hard river run (wade).

Chris (Dr Bidz) at this point making an unofficial toilet stop.

A brief hint of warm water for Steve.

I will be uploading more photos all this week and I have photos of most of the runners. All of our team made it home safe, and we are very proud of them. Dr Bidz has written a detailed blog of his road to the Darth that you can read here. Maybe it will inspire you to do it next year, DimExcuses.