It’s mid June, so it must be time for another Welsh Castles Relay. Friday afternoon 40 runners and 6 supporters started to make their way up to north Wales for the start of this year’s relay in Caernarfon on Saturday morning.

The ladies team, again ably captained by Louisa Ruderman, had to cope with a rather large number of drop-outs (for various reasons) leading up the weekend, but somehow Louisa managed to convince/cajole/force 20 runners to actually show up for the weekend. Having won against very strong opposition from Winchester & District last year, who decided not to send a ladies’ team this year, they were hoping to defend the title and add a few more trophies to the cabinet.

The men’s team, again captained by Andy Davies, looked as strong as last year’s, and was hoping to improve on last year’s 3rd place, when some of the runners had problems to cope with the heat, so the rule was ‘Don’t collapse!’.

Saturday started bright and sunny, ideal for supporting, and a breeze kept temperatures down and running conditions much more pleasant than last year. A few unnamed persons nursing hangovers from Friday’s late bar not withstanding, things got off to a good start with Liz Wynn winning the first mountain stage (and this time round remembering that steep hill at the end) and Eric Phillips having a storming run on stage 5, winning by a good margin and beating the course record. I’m sure we’ll see him wearing that lovely yellow sweatshirt for the next year 😉

Saturday ended on a high note with Claire Imrie winning the mountain stage into Newtown convincingly, taking the ladies to a rather narrow lead in the ‘Queens of the Mountains’ competition and a very safe lead of 46 minutes in the overall standings. The men’s team was up against strong competition from the organizers, Les Croupiers, and last year’s winners, Clevedon, leading by less than 2 minutes after 100 miles of running.

After meeting in a pub close to Newtown and exchanging stories of how the first day went while filling up on pasta, it was time to repair for the night, even though rumour has it that some of the guys somehow managed to find a nightclub in the middle of Wales to celebrate the first day’s successes.

Having gotten up way too early on Sunday morning, Jane Fanning decided she needed another huge sweater to keep her warm and went on to win the first mountain stage out of Newtown. Robin Tuddenham, back after last year’s tumble at the end of stage 15, had a storming run on stage 13, winning by a good margin. While the girls were extending their overall lead nicely, the men’s race looked very tight between Serpentine and Les Croupiers with lots of text messages sent to update the current time differential down to the last second. However, as the race came closer to Cardiff it became clear that Les Croupiers had kept some excellent runners for the last few stages and managed to inch away from us.

In the end the boys had to settle for second place by 16 minutes and to drown their sorrows with a few cans of lager at Cardiff Castle, while the girls got the champagne out to celebrate their overall victory, victory in the ‘Queens of the Mountains’ (Liz Wynn, Louisa Ruderman, Claire Imrie, Jane Fanning, Liz Whiting, Theresa Brady), and individual stage prizes, though I’m not sure if we’ll see these lovely pink jumpers on display much.

Thanks must got to the organizers, Les Croupiers running club, for putting on such a great event year after year, and everybody in our club who spent lots of time organising and making sure everything went smoothly: Louisa and Andy as team captains spending hours on the mobile and email to assemble strong teams, Lisa making sure everyone had a bed for the night, Ian organising our minibuses, our minibus drivers who got us safely round Wales (Liz, Jo, Jane, Tor, Rachel, Helen, Richard, Ian, Sally, Alan, James) and everyone else who pitched in to help, navigate, marshal or do whatever was necessary to keep things going smoothly. Special thanks must go to Ian, Sally, Keith, Alan, and James for coming out for the weekend to drive and help without being given a chance to run, let’s hope we can have a vet’s team next year as well.

On to WCR 2009 then!

Paul.