The Welsh Castles Relay 12-13 June 1999
by Arthur Garrison
Two weeks to go and we had only 16 confirmed runners for the men's team. We needed 20. "How did I ever let myself get talked into doing this?", I thought.
"It's time to declare an emergency" said my email, sent to anyone who had any experience putting teams together. Pretty soon we'd mobilised a small hit squad to apply physical force, feminine charms, bribery – anything – to convince recalcitrant runners to agree to joining the team. Eric Williams arrived next Saturday for his first run with the club. "Hi, are you new? Do you now how to run? Good, you're on the team." Three to go. Jean Luc gets the award for the most times changing his mind. First it was oui, then no because of family commitments, then it was mais oui because he had the wrong date for the commitment, then it was no because he couldn’t get a train at the right time and then it was oui encore because he could get a ride from Marianne Morris. By the day of the race, I'd spoken to every male member of the club at least once and we finally had a full team and even two reserves. Next year we'll apply physical force sooner.
Getting 50 Serpies to Wales and then delivering them to specific points in Wales at specific times over the next two days presented some significant logistical challenges. Three mini-buses and a handful of cars were enlisted for the task. The driving plan for each mini-bus looked like an electronic wiring diagram showing how runners, buses, hotels, drivers, backup drivers, runners’ bags, spouses or significant others and the odd bicycle were to be matched up, exchanged, dropped off, picked up, fed, watered, etc.
Saturday morning, the team captains met for last minute plans and the first crisis arose: the buses on the driving plan were designated 1,2 and 3, but Ros, in a fit of creativity, had named them Anaconda, Boa and Cobra. Trying to make us feel better, Paul Ingram observed that the NATO chiefs must be going through similar problems planning the deployments in Kosovo, and some of their charts were probably in Russian.
John Walker and Jane Thompson lead off the Serpentine effort in the first stage. A special award would be given to the first over 50 runner in the first stage to commemorate Jeff Wood, a member of Les Croupiers, the organising club, who died last year as he completed his run of that stage.
As the race progressed reports of heroic athletic achievements began to come in. Sepanta might have won her stage (?). Sami had run faster than he expected (and would have been faster if he hadn't spent so much energy cursing me for having assigned him an all uphill stage). His think-system of training (sit in comfortable chair and visualise running faster than Arthur) seems to be working remarkably well. Ian, reluctantly admitted that his injury was going to prevent him from running so first substitute in the queue, Dave Lipscombe, took over. He ran sub 8 minute miles and his feet never touched the ground again.
At some point during stage 9, Ros, in another flash of creativity, made the piercing observation that 9:30 is later than 8:45. This discovery amazed us all, but it took on special importance when it was noted that 9:30 was the expected arrival time at the Welshpool hotel if the buses stayed with the last runners of the day; whereas 8:45 was the last time when the Welshpool hotel would serve food. Quick, re-plan... The mobile phones hummed, buzzed and bleeped. The electronic wiring diagram was redesigned. All the buses were to converge at the end of stage 9. "All the people staying in Welshpool get in one bus, quick! No, that bus". We almost pulled it off. We got the right runners, drivers, spouses and significant others, into the right bus going to the right hotel almost at the right time, but the bags didn’t make it. The mobile phones hummed, buzzed and bleeped once more and we all converged at the end of stage 10 for another attempt. In the mean time, bus 2, I mean Boa, got a late start on its duties to water and cheer on Leighton and Annie. We didn’t catch Leighton until more than half way through his King of the Mountain stage, by which point he was well on his way to dehydration. Oops.
During the day, Sue Ellen had been feeling gradually worse (food poisoning?). That night, Beate made the decision to substitute Sue McGinlay, but that required rearranging Sunday’s runners. Redesign the wiring diagram again. The revised plan was faxed from the Crossgates hotel, after being thoroughly "quality assured" by Ruth, to Ian, Jan and Beate staying in Welshpool (how did they ever do this before fax machines and mobile phones?)
Sunday started with Jan selflessly waking up at 6:00 to ferry Owen and Mike to the start of stages 11 and 12 where they joined Heather and Maggie while the remainder of the teams slept peacefully, well sort of. A quirk of the new plan was that Owen was met at the end of his stage by, well... a mini-bus (with Sally sitting inside it holding the keys). He had to drive himself on to Crossgates to pick up his late sleeping team mates. Another quirk of the revised plan: Owen and Grethe would have to be in different buses for a couple of hours. Would they make it? In the mean time Owen was still coming down from the high of his 7:00 am run and was speculating on whether there would be a market opportunity selling his excess endorphins.
Baiju and John Hudspeth deserve special mention for volunteering to run stage 14 from Builth Wells to Drovers Arms. With about a 1000ft climb in about 1.5 miles, it is certainly the toughest stage. And with the sun shining, it was possibly the hottest, too. But the views made it worthwhile, at least for those of us riding in the bus! John ran a very controlled race, starting quite slowly and passing 12 other runners in the hill. We took before and after photos (and lots of in between ones, too). Although you can tell the difference, Baiju is smiling in both.
Starting out from Builth Wells, we nearly had our first navigational catastrophe. We were looking for road signs to Llan-something-or-other. Sure enough, there was a sign for Llanelwedd, but it didn’t seem to be in the right direction. Then there was a sign for Llandovery and then Llanwrtyd Wells, then Llanlleonfel, then Llangynog, then Llanddewir Cwm, and then... fortunately, we then saw one of the runners and followed them.
Quote of the day from Eric (American) at the start of his stage, 15, "I'm going to jump on the back of a sheep and say 'give us a ride, baby'". Leighton (Welsh) had to take him aside for a little talk.
Probably the most exciting moments of the day occurred as a result of the huge delays caused by road works in stage 17. Although the runners got through, the entire entourage of support was left behind. Sue Ellen who had made a near miraculous recovery and Keith, who wasn't recovering from anything in particular, were left without support for most of their stage. In the mean time, Ruth and Martin, riding in Cobra, somewhere behind Boa, were speeding at about 1 mph towards the start of stage 18. Taking matters into their own hands, Ruth, with Martin in tow, jettisoned Cobra and started running through the car park which had formed on A470. After hitching a ride, they stumbled upon Boa which had finally broken through and was watering the wilted Keith and Sue Ellen. Holding a gun to Maggie's head, Ruth commandeered Boa to take her to the end of stage 17. After a frantic search through Merthyr Tydfil shouting "where did they put the castle?", we dropped Ruth and Martin off near Cyfarthfa Castle where they discovered that, unlike every other stage in the race, stage 18 did not start where stage 17 finished. Very clever, those Les Croupiers. Another bus was required. Becoming quite experienced now at mini-bus piracy, the deed was accomplished in a flash. This time, one from the Swansea Ladies team (but how come it was full of men, Ruth?). Martin and Ruth made it to their start 20 minutes late, but they weren't the last ones and the start was held another five minutes. Phew.
But where were Oleg and Zahra? Oleg, with his amazing no-spill-speed-synchronised water-hand-off technique and Zahra who unfortunately happened to be sitting closest to the door had been volunteered to stay behind somewhere on stage 17 to water Keith and Sue Ellen. In all the commotion, no one had remembered to go back for them. Visions of desiccated corpses were beginning to fill my mind when Ian driving Cobra appeared carrying a smiling and fully hydrated Oleg and Zahra.
With that emergency under control, we received a call from Anaconda, in position at the start of stage 19, telling us that Marianne, who was bringing Jean Luc, Zelah and Rupert up from London, the entire team for the last two stages, could not be found. Sue, for the second time that weekend, and Richard Smith for the first time, prepared themselves to substitute for the absent runners. Richard got as far as pinning on his numbers when the call to stand down came through. The runners had all been found in a pub… warming up.
The race finished in Bishop's Palace, Llandaff. Zelah came in near the front, but unfortunately Rupert along with what must have been 50% of the runners took a bad turn and came in well behind Zelah. After team photos and the presentations, most of the team retired to The Poacher's Lodge where Ian had arranged for half price meals and everyone exchanged stories of a very successful weekend for the Serpentine Running Club.
Thanks to Jan and Beate who organised the women’s team; Ian who organised transportation and lots of little details; Bev who booked and booked and booked hotels; Ruth who double checked all the logistics and couldn’t sleep Saturday night trying to make sure we weren’t going to leave a runner or a bag or a spouse behind anywhere on the course; Tom for driving, Ros and John Walker for all their advice; the four subs, Cathy, Sue, Dave and Richard, who came without any promise of running; and the many supporters, including Paul Ingram, Ros Young, Oleg Meshkov. Did I forget anyone?
If anyone thinks this sounds like fun, please volunteer next year before we have to resort to physical force.
The men's team placed 31st (out of 49 teams) overall, 22nd (out of 29) in the open category and 26th in the King of the Mountain category
Arthur Garrison