Fortunately storm Claudia passed through on Friday leaving (combined) over 3,500 runners to enjoy better conditions for both the Penmaenmawr Fell Race on Saturday & the Conwy Half Marathon on Sunday (15th & 16th Nov respectively). Myself & Dorina were to be at both, marshalling on the Pen & running the Conwy.
Firstly note if you are ever marshalling at Cae Coch do not take the road up from Rowen, it is not suitable for any car wider than a motorbike!
Conditions underfoot for the Pen were seriously wet, streams were running freely over several parts of the course & even the road section saw the runners running through several inches of water at times, thankfully we were wearing full waterproof walking boots but even those weren’t enough at one point.
With it being a North Wales counter there was a large turnout so I was very pleased that Dorina had said yes to my plea for help as, even with two of us, it was very difficult to record every race number particularly when large groups came past us with some wearing jackets over their numbers. In all we recorded 242 runners & two sweepers & think that we may have missed one runner in an early group. Dorina did her best to have conversations with the many familiar faces & did her very best not to listen to my shouts of ‘CONCENTRATE’! Probably she can be excused as not having my experience of being waist deep in the notorious bog (2018) thereby making it reasonably essential to account for each runner for the race Organiser, Russel Owen. Talking about Russ he’d made an early requisition of part of the course early a.m. & made a great decision to keep to the race route & not opt for the bad weather route.
The race was won by Josh Hartley of Black Combe in a nippy 1:12:31 followed by two local runners Gavin Roberts & Gareth Hughes. The first woman was Ruth Calcraft in 1:31:07 of Run Free Fell Runners. In truth anyone who took part deserves a big pat on the back for supporting such an iconic race which was celebrating it’s 50th anniversary, can it really be 10 years ago that I ran in the 40th race setting my pb of 1:33:56 & 7 years since that horrific bog experience ended my participation in the race in subsequent years. Note to self, recce the route with someone who knows the line around the bog, Richard Roberts comes to mind & then enter the race again.
Well done to Russ & his team, it was a pleasure to be part of you & the warmest I’ve been at a Marshalling position all year.
Sunday dawned early with Dorina serving our usual pre-race breakfast of a slice of toast, two poached eggs & a good helping of baked beans at 5:50 a.m.
We arrived at the car park in Conwy just before 8 a.m. to avoid the inevitable rush for parking spaces, toilets & bib collection (why I’d paid for Dorina’s bib to be posted to her & not done likewise for myself is quite frankly anyone’s guess). Back at the car we kept warm & tinkered with the finishing touches to our kit, Dorina decided to carry her bag with half a litre of water & two gels whereas (unusually for me) I decided to not carry a bag at all.
Soon it was time to make it to the start area where on a final walk to the urinal I bumped into Paul Ellis. Paul had supported me on my charity runs in both 2023 & 2024 & had stalked me for most of this race last year, thankfully he was graceful enough not to overtake me at the finish! This year would be different, he started ahead of me & stayed there for the whole race.
Urinal business completed I rejoined Dorina & we walked up & onto the bridge together. Here we wished each other luck & then split up as I edged closer to the start line whilst leaving a respectful distance from it for the fast bucks.
From the start my splits were quite pleasing ranging from 4:36 to 4:14 per K, this led to the normal doubts ‘am I over cooking it’ but it felt good. The same could not be said once I got to the climbs on the Great Orme. For once I was being overtaken by more than I was overtaking others & the last killer climb felt seriously hard, however my splits seemed to be O.K. with the two slowest being closer to 5 minutes than 6.
I hit the 10K mark in a little under 46 minutes at which point this numbers man did his maths ’11K to go, if I get back to 4:30 splits I’ll probably, but not definitely beat last years time’. So from the top of the Orme it got serious!
Fortunately I got a bit lucky as I’d soon closed the gap on a strong looking woman (later I’d see she was in the 50/54 age category) who’d overtaken me on the last climb. As we descended & then made our long run into the finish I tracked her all the way. Occasionally I almost pulled level & thought about passing her but this hope seemed to dissipate immediately as she seemed to ease away again. For nearly 10K we were within 1 & 10 metres of each other & both running very consistent splits even on the gentle climbs into Deganwy. With 2 K to go my confidence that I would beat last year’s time was more or less sealed despite the increasing discomfort in my troublesome left big toenail.
Climbing the final ramp up onto the bridges we turned towards the finish, the woman left me for dead despite me picking of a few myself including an Eryri Harriers teammate who’d we’d been gradually closing on since the top of the Orme (felt a bit guilty about that despite him being in the 60/64 category, we did congratulate each other at the finish).
I crossed the line in 1:37:28 exactly 1 minute faster than last year, typing this 3 days later that still feels good. The woman by the way beat me by 4 seconds. What didn’t feel good was that bloody toenail. Why can I run nearly flat out despite knowing the damage I’m inflicting on it & then hardly walk as soon as my race was run? But walk I had to do, firstly to collect my medal & T shirt & then back to the car to get some warm jackets & remove my shoes & socks, replace them with open toed sandals & thereby relieve much of the pain. Job done time to get back to the finish before Dorina arrived.
Reaching the finishing enclosure I soon spied Carla Lauder & Helz Taylor & walked over for a couple of fist pumps. As they made their way towards the medals I stayed put & waited for Dorina whom soon walked towards me with her usual post finish smile. This was despite her frustration at not having started her watch properly at the start line & only correcting it after more than a K later. This had meant she was running part ‘blind’ for the entire race, a ‘rooky’ mistake which I doubt she’ll make again. Despite this she would later find out that she ran her race in 2:11:41 a very respectable first effort so well done Angel!
As we mingled briefly again with Carla, Helz & co near the HQ tent it was the inexperienced Dorina & not the experience me who realised we had a second medal each to collect. This one for having also participated in it’s sisters event (Liverpool HM) back in March.
We failed to meet up with another friend, Fiona Duckers, from the Wirral due to coms issues but would later see that she also had picked up her two bits of bling (did I really just type that word, at my age….).
Time waits for no one so back to the car again as we were due to have lunch with John & Marion at 1:00pm at the Cafe.
The next day, despite the toenail & a sore left heel, I was able to split & stack wood for 4 hours & then go out for a gentle recovery run. The latter paid off as by Tuesday the heel had fully recovered, no gain without pain.
Thanks to everyone who helped make the weekend what it was, a lot of good organising brought a lot of joy to all who took part & thanks to the spectators who were cheering on so enthusiastically.
I’ll finish as only a stat man can with those stats:-
Me – 1:37:28, 319th male out of 2010 (not quite top 15%). 358th overall out of 3,386 (not quite top 10%). 18th Male 55/59 out of 197 (top 10% despite being at the tail end of that age group (these things matter, I could argue I was possibly top 2% for my actual age group of O.59 & a half). Sorry you were warned……..
Dorina – 2:11:41. 666th Female out of 1,376 (top 50% & the sign of the devil). 2221st out of 3,386 overall. 89th 44/49 Female out of 195 (again top half, well done!).
As ever, thanks if you’ve read this far.
PS. We have entered Conwy HM 2026, hope to see you there!
