Twin Piers race

I started the racing year with a race I hadn't done before, just like last year. This time the novelty in the calendar was the Twin Piers race, from Llandudno to Colwyn Bay. A rather flat course. Not the most exciting, but a nice one to start off with!

Because it is a one-way race, you have to think about how to get from the finish to the start. The race organisation mentioned there was transport; I assumed that would be with coaches, but it didn't provide detailed information. Would you have to be transported with only everything you would have on you in the race? Or was there bag transport? If everyone would show up suddenly by coach, would that not overwhelm the provided portaloos? I decided to sort out my own transport. I drove to the finish with my bike in the back. That way I could also recce the course. I had not done that on foot! And I found Emma, the fast Dutch lady who was picking up her race number, but would then drive to the start. She said she would run back to her car at the end. Perhaps, if my car stayed there, could she put a jacket in my car? Of course she could! I had one in there myself as well.

I got a good idea of the route, and especially the hill in the middle. And I had decided to scout out the public toilets in town. My least favourite part of the race is always queueing for the toilets by the start! But if you have a bike, you might as well just go a bit further away and have some public toilets all for yourself. Unfortunately, you get nothing for nothing in Llandudno. Both sets of public toilets I scouted out required a 50p coin for access. I did not carry any on me. I might have to rely on the loos by the start anyway.

The start confused me a bit. Normally, that is quite some infrastructure. But I suppose this time, all the infrastructure was at the end, and at the start there was basically only a bloke with a microphone and a big sign saying "Start" (which I initially entirely failed to spot). And there were portaloos. At least the coaches hadn't arrived yet, so there was no queue. I took advantage of that.

It was beautiful and sunny! I decided to strip down to my racing tire quite quickly. I stuffed my excess clothing in my bicycle bag. I had faith it would be safe there. And I was hoping to see a lot more Eryri Harriers. I saw fewer than expected! But I saw some fellow track runners. That was nice too.

Sunny by the pier! 

After a while I found the rest of the club, and we posed for a club picture. And then it was about time to start. I made sure to be somewhere at the front, but as soon as the whistle went a lot of people came storming past. This included two Cybi Striders of note: the first was my friend Louise, who had said she was going to try to stick with me as long as she could by way of pacing, which clearly went out of the window in the first second. The second was Richie, who is more or less as fast as me, so it is always anybody's guess who is going to win. In the last five races he had beaten me three times, so I really wanted to beat him again!

Club pic

I knew I would quite have liked to run a personal best, but then I would have to run from the start at a 4:15 pace. And I could immediately feel that that was not going to happen. Sometimes you have your day and sometimes you don't. This day I didn't. But I made sure I didn't stray too far away from Louise and Richie. 

After a kilometre or two I caught up with Louise. She admitted he had set off too fast again! A bit like in the Breakwater race. We ran together for a little bit, but then I wanted to go and chase Richie. I figured I could take him on this time; he had a bit of a niggle, and I was fine. That put me at an advantage! Am I overtook him before we hit 3 km.

I was alright on the uphill; I normally am. And the downhill wasn't steep at all. That suited me fine! But by about 5 km I was starting to feel the strain. I knew a personal best wasn't going to happen, but another thing I would quite like to get was a category win. My first race after my 50th birthday! And I had no idea, of course, who was in front of me, but I figured I couldn't relent, in order to maximise my chances of getting it. I plodded on, counting the kilometres away. 

In the last few kilometres, the field was quite spread out, so I didn't think any 50+ lady was going to jump out of nowhere and overtake me. I just kept up my speed and hoped for the best! And I was properly, properly out of breath when I finished. Immediately I received a text. The timing software gave me my time! And could even tell me the results so far. So I immediately knew that indeed, I was there fastest woman over 50! I was happy with that. My time was 43:47; 1:10 away from a PB. And quite unlike my previous 50+ win (even though I was 49) I wouldn’t have won in the previous age category. Oh well! And there would be other chances to try to beat my PB.

Emma had already finished, of course, Louise and Richie weren't far behind me. We did the usual after race chat. How did it go? Were we happy with our time? What was our ranking? And I got to my car so both me and Emma could put a jacket on. It was cold!

There was a bit of faffing, and then the ceremony started. I knew I would get a trophy, and there were several other Eryri Harriers who did. Excellent! And one thing I didn't see coming; this race also gave a price for the fastest theme. I wondered if you would have had to register as a team for that, but it turned out you don't. But they just do it take the fastest for men and the fastest for women from any club that has entered at least four of each, and then figure out which were on average the fastest. It was us! And I was the third fastest woman. I was proud of that!

Me, Emma and Louise by the finish

Getting my trophy. Pic by Louise

6 out of the 8 winning team members

I quite like that our team of 8 was almost entirely above 40. Only one of the women was running in the 35-40 category. And then we had 4 people in 40-45, 2 in 50-55, and 1 in the 55-60 category! So we were a bunch of superfast middle-aged people.

After the ceremony from the organisers, there was a second ceremony by Welsh Athletics, as this race was in the North Welsh championships. But because it was cold, quite some people decided to not wait for that. The crowd got smaller and smaller when they went through the categories! Because I had won outright in my category, I also got a medal from them. And with my finishing medal, that brought my loot to four trophies! And my category win got me a nice tile with an old picture of the Colwyn Bay pier.

Now it was really time to go. So I drove back to the start, found the parking place near where my bicycle was parked, and loaded it up. Time to go home! The racing year 2026 had commenced!

Loot!