Marshalling Moel Siabod

I had spotted another call for marshals in spring; this time for the Moel Siabod race. And that is the sort of race I don't like running myself, so I volunteered. I would happily run up Siabod, but I don't want to run down it! But that is included in the race.

The bloke organising it was being very thorough; he wanted to do an online marshal briefing the week before, and then an in-person marshal briefing the night before. I couldn't make the online briefing as I was running up Snowdon at the time. I could make the briefing the night before, although it seemed a bit much. Can't you do the briefing on the day? And it turned out that he could. I hadn't set off yet when I got a WhatsApp message saying he didn't expect anyone that night. Excellent! I was still quite tired from my three days of too much exercise, and was quite happy to spend this evening on the sofa with a cup of tea.

On race day I rocked up and introduced myself to James, the organiser (not the same James I went to Merthyr Tydfil with; that James turned out to be one of the runners), who accidentally did the right thing and offered me a coffee. We waited a bit for the others to appear and then he briefed us. He didn't really need to! We'd all read the enormous document he had sent us. We knew what was expected of us.

We each took a group shelter, a high viz vest, a radio, a clipboard with a list of race numbers, and a pen, and then together walked to our respective stations. There weren't many of us! He would have liked to have two more marshalling stations but didn't have the people. 

Marshals on the way to their stations

It was quite a warm day, but wet. The course would be slippery! I was glad I wouldn't have to run it. And I was a bit nervous. Quite early on, the path is very rocky and stony and full of trip hazards and other opportunities to fall in your face. Would the runners be OK? Especially with the marshals so widely spaced out? I know almost everyone is better at rocky and slippery descents than me, but still.

Quite soon I peeled off. I was stationed where the course goes from heather to grassland. I radioed through that I was in position, put on more clothes now that I was not going to walk up a hill anymore for a while, went to the loo for the last time, and then waited for the runners to arrive. I figured some of them wouldn't need very long to get from the start to there. And they didn't!

Bilberries! I had some.

Runners approaching 

We were asked to note the race numbers of all the runners. If a runner would go missing, we would know where they would have been last seen, and roughly when. And it was wet, and windy, but it was still doable to manage a paper list.

I also recognised a fair bunch of runners. Not that I expected much less! It was nice to shout them along. And then I had a bit of time to kill before they would all storm past again on the way down. But thanks to the radios and WhatsApp I could roughly check progress.

The last runner vanishes uphill. The red jacketed figure is a walker who stopped for a chat.  And notice the new jacket, and glasses for reading race numbers 

Then the first super fast men appeared again. The same two men were in the lead as had been on the way up! Very consistent runners. And then the rest followed. The first woman I saw was Katie, who had organised the Holyhead Mountain race, after the night before winning Snowdon Twilight. I knew she would win. The woman in silver position was miles behind her.

I knew some runners were taking imaginative routes. I sort of expected them to approach over the path, but a fair few didn't, and appeared from wherever. Five had not been seen at the checkpoint between the summit and me. Oh dear! But for anyone roughly going in the right direction, my checkpoint was unavoidable. So I was counting down the runners. Five to go. Four. Three. Two. But the third last runner had been last on the way up, by quite a margin. And I recognised the number of one of the runners I hadn't seen yet. He is an Eryri Harrier and I know he should be faster than this man. I didn't know who the other missing number was. I got a bit worried now. Where was Steve, the Harrier? Had he taken a route off the path, slipped somewhere, and was now lying in an arbitrary ditch with a broken ankle or something? And the other runner too?

I wanted guidance from race HQ, but James wasn't responding to either radio communications or WhatsApp. I was wondering if I should just call out Mountain Rescue. My phone had signal. If someone was lying in a ditch with a broken ankle, we wanted to get to them as quickly as possible. The runners were expected to carry kit for such an occasion, but it had not been checked, and even if you do have waterproofs to put on on such a cold wet windy hillside, you won't be comfortable at all. 

The others were less worried than I was. And they said that if someone was in trouble, we shouldn't start searching for them, as the risk was that we ourselves would just get lost or break our ankles. We knew they were not on/by the path. And after a while there finally was contact with headquarters. We heard that at least Steve's partner had been informed. If she didn't want to call out Mountain Rescue, then it shouldn't be called out, I suppose. We continued our way down. And then when we were already in the woods, the message came through: Steve and the other missing runner had reported to race HQ! They were fine. Phew! 

We made our way back as well, and on the festival terrain we did find Steve. He had to explain what happened. What it boils down to was that the other missing runner (I forgot her name) accidentally went the wrong way at the summit, and he went after her in an attempt to stop her from straying. But it was very misty up there, they didn't have a compass, and now they just ended up straying together. The race was supposed to be just an up-and-down on the path that runs NNE, with the whole mountain facing NE, but they had ended up to the east of the ridge, and came down that way, which makes you end up at Pont Cyfwng rather than Caffi Siabod. Hence that no one had seen them since the summit. And neither of them had brought their phone. But they were OK!

I figured we would have already missed the presentation, but that was not the case. And right now there was a band playing. No way that James would be able to make himself heard over that sound level, so now we had to wait for the band to stop. Quite a lot of the runners (especially those who had run themselves a prize) had done it within the hour, but now it was already about three hours after the start. A lot of runners had already left! While the band played, more were leaving. At some point the band played ‘Yma o Hyd’ and I think there is some law against playing anything after that. This is the bang you have to go out with! But they ignored that, and still played a few more songs. Finally they were done.

There was the junior race and the senior race, and the senior race had age categories up to 80+, so there were a lot of winners. But it turned out that only two of them were still present to collect their prize. That was a bit of a disappointment! But at least one of them was Katie, so I could applaud for her and take a picture. But then it was time to go home. I was hungry now!

Katie with trophy 

Altogether a slightly weird race. Over-organised, except when we most wanted organisation. But all was well in the end! And I could easily see myself marshalling that next year again. Hopefully, with less worry!