I took a nice little trip to Wales to walk the horseshoe root. It was a planned trip for a friend's fortieth Birthday.
I love this route. It has a great variety of terrains to test my fitness.
I specifically wanted to test my shoes on mountain terrain to see how my toes and ankles held up.
I am not sure about other people but I always end up with bruised toes, blisters and sore and tired ankles.
It was a hot day and against better thinking I walked straight through the stream completely soaking my shoes. I wanted to see how quick they would dry in the sun whilst walking.
Turns out to be the amount of time it takes to walk to the top of Pen Y Fan. Not too bad in my opinion.
This trip we altered our route to take in Fan Y Big and then realised the time and followed a bearing straight down the side back to the roman style road.
I found that my ankles and shoes handled the rough and uneven surface really well and had given me confidence that trail runners are the right footwear to wear in the mountains going forward.
It was a hot day and at the end my feet felt good. Dry and not sweaty like with boots. Remarkably not a bruised toe in sight and no blisters. This is great news!