🧠 Part 3: How I Emotionally Prepared (Spoiler: I Didn’t)

Now that I’d packed like I was heading into Mordor with a dodgy knee, it was time to face the next challenge:

Feelings.

Yeah… let’s talk about those.

---

🌀 Spiralled With Precision

Let’s just clear one thing up right now: if I’d had more time to emotionally prepare for the Welsh 15, I’d be licking OS maps and speaking only in contour lines.

So frankly, deciding just over a month ago was an act of self-preservation.

Yes, I’ve trained. Yes, I’ve hiked. Yes, I’ve walked Skye like we’re preparing for the Husky Olympics.

But emotionally?

I've done what any sensible overachiever would do:

Spiralled With Precision.

One minute I’m thinking:

“I’m so ready for this. Let’s go.”

The next minute I’m googling “Will 4000m of ascent expose me as a fraud or awaken my inner mountain goat?”

The group I’m hiking with?

They’re probably all ultra-runners with quads like granite and body fat percentages in the negatives.

Meanwhile, I’m out here staring at elevation maps like a caffeinated conspiracy theorist and wondering if cheese sticks count as fuel.

Not sure if this is a hike or a saw blade designed by Satan

---

☔️ The Weather Spiral™

Enter my favourite form of pre-event suffering: forecast fixation.

Yr.no is now the most visited site in my life.

At the time of writing — three days out — Yr.no has declared that we’re doing the Wet Welsh 15™:

⛈️ Biblical rain. All day.

💨 20 mph winds.

😬 Vibes: soggy with a high chance of swearing.

I now check the forecast every few hours like it’s a live event.

Bethesda — the town where we meet the group — is basically my internet home address now.

I know more about its hourly microclimate than I do about my own post code.

But why stop there?

I also check Nant Peris, the next location — because it’s worse.

More rain. More wind. More reasons to ask myself, “Why are you like this?”

Then “I check Nant Ffrancon because it’s the closest I can get to weather-stalking Ogwen Valley without launching a drone.

I check these tabs more than I check my bank account. One is wetter than the other.

And just when I think I’ve hit peak spiral…

---

🌧 The Crib Goch Grip (Now Moisturised)

Ah yes. Crib Goch.

The drama queen of ridges. The knife-edge of nightmares.

But not just Crib Goch — wet Crib Goch.

That’s when everything in me elevates.

My pulse.

My cortisol.

My browser history.

It’s one thing to tiptoe across a jagged, sky-high edge in sunshine.

It’s quite another to do it in wind, rain, and full existential dread.

Every time I refresh the forecast and see that ridge looming — soaked, windswept, and ready to ruin someone’s weekend — I feel the panic rising like I just realised I packed five knee braces but forgot my actual knees.

Honestly, at this point I’m not preparing.

I’m bracing.

Forecast: 40 km/h soul removal. Precipitation: enough to baptise a ridge.

---

🍝 The Carb Loading Crisis

Naturally, in between weather spirals and slippery ridge fear, I managed to fall headfirst into another rabbit hole:

carb loading.

Apparently, “the pros” do it.

And by “pros,” I mean a collection of semi-mythical ultra-athletes whose ghostly presence haunts my Google history.

So now I’m wondering:

Should I carb load?

Should I eat pasta for three days like I’m prepping for a marathon and/or a food coma?

I even bought two packets of fusilli in a moment of supermarket panic.

They're now sitting on my kitchen counter, silently judging me while I eat toast and continue spiralling.

Because here’s the thing:

I’ve survived plenty of hard hikes without inhaling spaghetti. But now, with the Welsh 15 looming, I suddenly feel like I need to transform into a carbohydrate-based lifeform just to keep up.

Do I even believe in this?

No.

But do I also now own essential oils for feet and a knee strap I’ve never used?

Absolutely.

I am deeply suggestible when anxious. If someone on the internet said, “You must eat a bowl of couscous at 2:00 AM to align your hiking chakras”, I’d be there. Fork in hand. Unblinking.

So… will I carb load?

Probably not.

But I could.

It's Tuesday and I still haven’t started.

The fusilli I panic-bought after Googling 'how to hike like an ultrarunner' at 23:30 PM

---

🥴 The Emotional Whiplash

Part of the reason I’m spiralling so enthusiastically is that I’ve never actually done something like this before.

Not in one day.

Not at this scale.

Not with this much pressure to pretend I’m fine while low-key dying inside.

And because there’s no past version of me to compare it to, I just keep swinging wildly between:

“I will absolutely smash this,”

and

"I will absolutely crash and burn and possibly roll down Tryfan like a broken meatball.”

So yeah, emotionally prepared?

Not even slightly.

But if you ever need someone to teach you how to spiral with flair, panic with precision, and stress-shop like I’m prepping for both a hike and the apocalypse?

I run seminars.

Certified in overthinking. Available for workshops.