Welsh Castles Relay - Leg 3

Altrincham entered a team into this years Welsh Castles Relay as part of the celebration for the club’s 50^th anniversary.  We’d never done the event before so were not sure what to expect, but our team captain Dave Livingstone had done a superb job researching the event and putting together a very detailed itinerary.

The event was run from Caernarfon Castle to Cardiff Castle.  220 miles, over 20 stages, and over 2 days, with an overnight stop in Newtown on the Saturday.

We arrived and could not believe our eyes in the car park.  Minibuses of runners dressed as pirates, schoolgirls and 118 men.  Daleks, Little Britain Characters, you name it, they were there!!   Others like us opted simply for matching club kit.  We were glad we had kit made up, but would definitely do the fancy dress theme next year

We had been awarded the very prestigious honour of leading the parade at the start.  This basically involves the runners lining up 200m before the real start line, and a selected club team jogging in front of the field, leading them to the start line.  This was the highlight of the weekend for me, quite an uplifting feeling with a group of us wearing our matching kit, young and old, fast and slow, carrying our flag and cheered on by the crowds outside the castle.

I was allocated leg 3 and all I knew was that it was 12.3 miles and a “mountain stage”.  This was a tad concerning for me as the last time I ran 12.3 miles was at the London Marathon and hills have been causing my hamstrings serious problems in recent weeks.

I set off and was straight into the lead, with two runners for company.  I recognised one as Alan Woods from Wirral who is a solid runner.  The other lad was a local lad who I had been talking to in the village and had no idea who he was or of his running ability, although he had the name REES imprinted onto his vest.  Incidentally, the stage record was held by Martin Rees, an extremely good runner back in the late 90s, so I wondered if this young man was a relation!

Anyway, before we had covered a mile, Mr Rees went to the front and I was quite happy to have somebody setting the pace given the fact I was highly unprepared for anything like this.  He led until about 3 miles, and then I noticed our club flag in the distance.  We had been allocated this leg to marshall so I thought I had better get in front again to keep them happy.  I started to push a little for the first time with a 5:05 mile and Woods was quickly disposed of but I was surprised to see that I still had company.  I tried to tell myself it was now an 8 mile race and to blank out of my mind the first 4 miles.  I continued to press but wasn’t really doing too much damage and approaching 6 miles I only had a lead of about 80 metres.  I took my foot off the gas, the gap was quickly halved and then I felt recovered enough to make a bigger push and I started to ease away, but when we started climbing at 9 miles the gap was still only 100m. 

The climb was pretty severe and I just concentrated on my technique and rhythm and when I took a quick glance back at 10 miles, I could see about 200m behind me and there was no sign of another runner so it appeared that job was done.  I began the long descent to the finish and was striding out nicely.  As I approached the finish, I took a glance back, just to make sure.  I didn’t expect to see anything, but Mr Rees had closed up significantly.  I had looked back just at the right time and was able to increase my cadence and hold on for a very hard fought stage win and my second race win of the week.