Marshalling Race the Train

I had heard of Race the Train. A race in Tywyn, mid Wales. You race a train going downhill, and you run on grass. That didn't seem to be my kind of thing at all!

Later I found out there is also a version in Caernarfon. That is also downhill, but very gently, on a bicycle path. That is much more up my street! And there was an announcement that registration would open at some time om a Sunday. I thought I'd register, but it failed. Then I noticed another announcement. The first announcement had a mistake; registration would open up at that same time on Monday. 

On that Monday I did my usual thing, with work and dinner and suchlike, and then thought I'd give registration a go. Too late! It turns out that this race sells out about as fast as an Oasis concert. Hence that they announced what time registration would open. Normally, that information is not given. Quite a lot of races never sell out, and those who do, often only do it in weeks. 

With that ship having sailed I emailed to say I was available as a marshal. So that was how it turned out. Instructions had been: be at the heritage steam train station in Caernarfon at 18:30. I decided to bring my bike; it is a 5k route, and if you get stationed 4k from the finish, a bike comes in handy. But when I got to HQ I was told I was stationed at most 200 meters from the finish. The bike had come for no reason. Oh well! Nothing lost.

The reason why they suddenly had a lot of marshals near the finish is that that is where the bicycle path comes onto a road. Normally, the road is very quiet, and that means the runners can just get onto it, and have all the space in the world to do some last overtaking manoeuvres. But this time, a parallel road had been closed, and there was a lot of traffic trying to squeeze itself down that road. It was imperative to keep the runners on the pavement! And that would be a lot of the marshals would be stationed right there, in the last 200m before the finish. 

We had been summoned at 18:30, but the train would only leave with the runners at 19:30. It would ride to stations inland, stop, let the runners out, give them a head start, and then make its way back. The start would be at 20:00, and a bit over 15 minutes later we would expect the first runner. So other than being told where we were stationed, we had precisely nothing to do between 18:30 and 20:15. I can imagine the organisation once they Marshalls to be there in good time in case of unexpected changes, but it felt a bit superfluous! I just had a nice chat with fellow marshals and with runners.

Runners getting on the train

The locomotive was still getting supplied

 

We did watch the train leave. The race was obviously sold out, so the locomotive pulled quite a number of carriages! It is a fine sight. 

The train, ready to leave, and a cluster of marshals on the other side of the wall

There it goes!

I got in position in good time. And then, some 17 minutes past eight, I could hear some shouting from the marshals further in land. The first runner was spotted! 

The first runner

We had traffic cones and tape to keep the runners on the pavement, so our job was basically just to cheer. The front runners ignored us; they needed all their energy to go as fast as they could. But after the first 10 runners or so, people started to respond. I knew quite a lot of the runners! These are always the most fun to cheer on. But the race numbers had names on, so you could cheer on complete strangers by their name as well. Sometimes you have to be careful; we knew some people had dropped out, because of injury or something, and had managed to transfer their number to somebody else. So then you could have the metaphorical bloke running with a race bib that says ‘Sue’. If that happens, it's probably a transfer case, and you might choose to do nameless cheering…

I thought we would be done quite quickly, but there were some people who need a lot more time than the front runners. The winner did it in 13:59 (the race must have started a bit after 8pm), but the last runner needed 47 minutes. So we were out there for a while! And most people beat the train. That seems to be unusual! It was said to have been a bit sluggish…

If I get to run it next year, I have a target time: 19:53. There was a Cybi Strider who tends to finish somewhere near me; we finished within 4 seconds of each other in the Pentir race, and 5 seconds in Felinheli, so he is a good proxy for my time. And that was the time he did it in. Very fast! Given that in Bethel, on a flat course, he needed 21:58. 

When the last runner had passed, we took down the tape and piled up the cones. And I went in to see the presentation. That started not much later. And rightly so; if you finished around 20:18, you might not like waiting until 21:00 or so to get your prize. I know, many races are worse, but they are also almost certainly longer, with the latest prize winner finishing a longer time after the overall winner. You could tell people wanted to go home; quite some prize winners didn’t show up, and many others left as soon as they had their prize. The last people to get chocolate or biscuits did so to a very small audience. 

I took a picture of the castle against evening skies from the pedestrian bridge over the track during the tidy up

Lots of prizes ready for the presentation! To be handed out by local legend Mike, assisted by local legends Ann and Sharon (yes they are sisters)

When it was done I left too. I had been there since 18:30 and hadn’t been needed for a minute of it. Time to get home, and to bed!