How Hard Is the Welsh 3000s? What Being Ready Actually Looks Like
One of the questions I get asked most about the Welsh 3000s is some version of “how fit do I need to be?”
It’s a reasonable question, but there isn’t a neat answer. You obviously need a good level of fitness because the challenge involves a huge amount of ascent and descent, a very long time on your feet and potentially somewhere around a full day of continuous movement.
What makes it difficult to answer is that fitness on its own doesn’t tell me enough.
I’ve seen people who are objectively very fit struggle with the Welsh 3000s, while other people who wouldn’t necessarily describe themselves as endurance athletes have moved extremely well all day. What usually interests me more is what sort of fitness somebody has, what terrain they regularly spend time on, whether they can move steadily for hours and what happens once that fitness is combined with rough ground, scrambling and fatigue.
Big mountain days tell me more than one fitness number
If somebody tells me they regularly have big days in Scotland, the Alps or further afield, where large amounts of ascent and rough terrain happen naturally, that is usually more useful information than a fast running time.
Back-to-back mountain days are useful too, as is previous experience of very long or 24-hour events. They don’t guarantee anything, but they at least mean somebody has some idea of what happens once a day extends well beyond normal hillwalking hours.
Completing something like the Snowdon 6 in a decent time would put somebody on the “maybe” pile from a fitness point of view. It shows they can handle substantial distance and ascent, but it still doesn’t tell me enough about how they will move over the terrain on the Welsh 3000s.
Ultra runners are a funny one for the same reason. Somebody who regularly runs technical mountain ultras may be exceptionally well prepared, but I wouldn’t automatically expect a trail ultra runner to be quicker or stronger across the route than a fit mountain walker who spends most weekends moving over rough ground.
Some of the strongest people I’ve had on the challenge have simply been people who obviously spend a lot of time in the mountains. Age has also been largely irrelevant in my experience. I’m much more interested in what somebody actually does in the hills than how old they are.
Looking fast and moving well are not the same thing
The Welsh 3000s doesn’t particularly reward somebody for being impressively quick for the first hour. What matters much more is whether they can maintain a sensible pace without repeatedly needing to stop and recover.
Someone can charge up a climb, pull away from everybody and look extremely fit, then need five or ten minutes before they can do anything else. Another person may look slightly slower but simply keeps moving.
Over a twenty-hour mountain day, those approaches produce very different results.
The stronger groups tend to be steady rather than dramatic. People eat and drink regularly, keep unnecessary stops short and deal with clothing or kit without every small adjustment turning into a major halt. On easier ground there are often opportunities to eat, drink or sort something while still making progress.
I’m not trying to race people around the Welsh 3000s, especially early in the day, but there is still a broad pace that needs to be maintained if the route is realistically going to fit inside 24 hours.
Before Crib Goch, then Elidir Fawr
I start getting an idea of how somebody is moving before we even reach Crib Goch.
If someone is already struggling to stay within a reasonable Welsh 3000s pace on the approach, it is useful information. It doesn’t mean I’ve decided they won’t finish because people can have good and bad patches, and some take longer than others to settle into a long day.
But there is still an enormous amount of ground ahead, so if the pace is proving difficult before the first major scrambling section it is something I’m watching.
Elidir Fawr is another very good indicator.
The ascent of Elidir Fawr is the biggest continuous climb of the Welsh 3000s, and it comes after the Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) section and the descent into Nant Peris. I don’t want people racing up it, but we do still need to climb at something approaching a sustainable 24-hour pace.
Some people simply cannot maintain that pace. If Elidir Fawr is already completely breaking somebody, I also have to think about what is still coming later in the Glyderau, where the ground becomes rougher, the descents get harder and fatigue continues to build.
I’ve had group members sensibly peel off towards Marchlyn Mawr from around this part of the route rather than continuing further into a challenge that was clearly moving away from them.
Good paths only prepare you for part of it
One of the biggest gaps I see is between being fit in the mountains and being comfortable moving over rough mountain terrain for hour after hour.
Someone can have done a lot of walking on Yr Wyddfa and other popular mountains, be genuinely fit and still have spent relatively little time on loose scree, boulders, steep grass, rocky gullies and awkward descents.
The Welsh 3000s contains plenty of all of those.
You are constantly adjusting how you move. One section is a decent path, then you’re picking through boulders, then edging down steep grass, then scrambling, then concentrating on slippery rock because the weather has changed.
That continuous rough-ground movement adds a different kind of fatigue to simply covering a lot of distance on constructed paths. It also requires concentration for hours at a time, which is one reason some very fit people are surprised by how hard the challenge feels.
The descents are particularly revealing here. I’ve written separately about the drop into Nant Peris, the ground beside Bristly Ridge and Tryfan’s western descent, because all three expose how comfortable somebody really is once the terrain becomes awkward and the legs are tired.
How much scrambling experience do you need?
On Mountain Craft’s 24-hour Welsh 3000s the group is guided at a low ratio, so nobody needs to arrive as an independent mountaineer who knows every move.
I do, however, ideally want people to have done Crib Goch before.
There is a difference between being guided over scrambling terrain and needing every individual move managed. Somebody who is comfortable enough on Crib Goch and Tryfan to follow guidance, make sensible movement decisions and keep progressing is in a very different position from somebody who needs continuous micro-management whenever the ground becomes exposed.
That matters partly because of time, but also because operating right on the edge of your comfort zone for hours is tiring in its own right. The challenge already demands enough physically without every rocky section also becoming a major psychological event.
What do other challenges tell you?
The Yorkshire Three Peaks is a perfectly good endurance day, but going from that to the Welsh 3000s is a very large jump.
The National Three Peaks is more useful in some ways because it gives people experience of a long challenge, managing food when they don’t particularly want to eat, dealing with tiredness and carrying on once the novelty has worn off.
The terrain, however, is very different.
I’ve described the Welsh 3000s to people before as something that can feel at least twice as hard as the National Three Peaks. That isn’t meant as a scientific conversion because there obviously isn’t one, but it gives some idea of the step up people can experience.
Completing another challenge tells me something, but what matters is what that day actually involved, what terrain somebody was moving over and whether they finished strongly or merely dragged themselves to the end.
A 1:1 training day with Justin
One of the more useful Welsh 3000s training days I’ve done recently was with Justin on the Pennant Horseshoe, linking the Moel Hebog and Nantlle ranges.
Justin wanted a private training day specifically for the Welsh 3000s, but he also wanted to visit some mountains he hadn’t done before, so we could kill two birds with one stone rather than simply walking part of the challenge route again.
We covered roughly 21km, 1,900 metres of ascent and six summits.
It gave us a proper amount of ascent, long sections of mountain terrain, plenty of opportunity to look at pacing and a very steep descent towards the end of the day when there was already fatigue in the legs.
That last part was useful because a big training day where all the difficult ground happens in the first couple of hours doesn’t necessarily tell you much about what you’ll be like descending once you’re properly tired.
I still wouldn’t turn those figures into a pass or fail test. Someone completing 21km and 1,900m does not automatically receive a certificate saying they’re ready for the Welsh 3000s, and somebody else might prepare very differently while being just as capable.
The value of days like that is seeing how somebody moves once the different parts are combined.
What actually stops people?
There isn’t one universal answer, but knees are a big one.
The Welsh 3000s contains so much descent that a small issue can gradually become a much bigger one. Something that feels like a minor niggle early in the day can become the reason somebody has to stop later, especially once they reach the rough descents in the Glyderau.
Pace decay is another common problem. Somebody may look absolutely fine for the first several hours, but gradually everything starts taking longer. Climbs slow down, descents become more cautious, stops get longer and eventually the time begins disappearing faster than it can be recovered.
That can come from fitness, poor pacing, nutrition, tired legs, sore feet, knees, lack of rough-ground experience or some combination of them.
Sometimes somebody who appears very well prepared simply has a bad day. Very fit people can get injured, become unwell or just not perform the way they normally would, while less experienced people occasionally turn out to be extremely strong once the day gets going.
That is why I’m wary of putting one rigid training benchmark in front of people and pretending it predicts the outcome.
Checkpoints tell you more than the watch does
The checkpoints on the Welsh 3000s are useful for much more than checking elapsed time.
At places like Nant Peris and Ogwen, I’m watching how organised people are, how quickly they deal with food, water, kit and clothing and whether the group is still functioning efficiently.
Somebody can be tired and still be completely on top of things. They know what they need, sort it, eat something and are ready to move.
Other people start drifting. Everything takes longer, small decisions become difficult and a five-minute stop quietly becomes fifteen.
The mood of the group matters too, especially later in the challenge. Ogwen is the last major checkpoint before committing to the Carneddau, so by then I’m interested in more than whether somebody can physically walk uphill.
Being very tired is normal. What concerns me more is somebody already talking as though they may not make it through the final section before we have even started it.
If someone says they might have to pull out part-way through the Carneddau, I take that seriously because once we commit to the final range the options change. I don’t need fake enthusiasm, but I do need an honest sense that somebody is still properly up for it and capable of making the commitment.
What being ready actually looks like
I wouldn’t reduce Welsh 3000s readiness to a particular distance, ascent figure or running time because too many other things matter.
What I’d rather see is a decent body of mountain experience which suggests somebody can handle the combination of long hours, substantial ascent, scrambling, rough terrain and steep descents.
Being comfortable on scrambling ground matters, but so does being able to descend efficiently when your legs are already tired. Pacing matters too. Someone who can move steadily for hours, eat and drink without endless stops and manage clothing or equipment without losing ten minutes every time is generally in a much stronger position than someone who is incredibly fast in short bursts.
Long mountain days are useful, especially if they include rough terrain and big descents. Back-to-back days can help, as can previous experience of very long endurance events, but none of those things guarantee a finish.
People get injured, weather changes and occasionally somebody simply has a bad day. The aim is not to find one perfect test, but to make sure your preparation actually resembles the demands of the challenge.
Welsh 3000s Preparation Days
That is one of the main reasons I run dedicated Welsh 3000s Preparation Days.
They aren’t designed to give someone a formal pass or fail result, and they aren’t simply route recces. The point is to put together a substantial mountain day and look at the things that genuinely affect a Welsh 3000s attempt: pace, rough-ground movement, sustained ascent and descent, food, clothing, equipment and what starts happening once fatigue appears.
We normally aim for at least 1,500 metres of ascent, and depending on the group and conditions the day can approach 2,000 metres.
For some people the day gives reassurance that their preparation is going well. For others it highlights something worth working on while there is still plenty of time before their attempt.
Either outcome is useful because it is based on what actually happens in the mountains rather than what a training spreadsheet says should happen.
Planning a Welsh 3000s attempt?
Mountain Craft runs dedicated preparation days alongside guided 24-hour, three-day and private Welsh 3000s options in Eryri.
