Llandudno 10 miler

The first day of the Easter break I could just relax. And the second day I would have the biggest race in my diary! The one where I had been asked to race for North Wales. I took that seriously.

It was not going to be an easy race. The distance and the route were fine, but the weather forecast was atrocious. A lot of rain and wind! But so be it. And it probably wouldn't help that the night before, the clocks would go forward, and it had a morning start. 

I woke up in Llandudno. The clock change hadn't affected me. And it wasn't raining! That was good news. But there was a lot of wind. I had my breakfast, and Neil and I walked down to the start. That was some 30 minutes. I first went to the loo, and then I went looking for Paul, the NWRAC official, who would have my race number. The rest of the team also flocked to him, so I got to meet them. There had only been two that I already knew; one from the club and one from the track, and now I heard there had been an addition to the team: very fast Menai Track and Field runner Steffan. But we had lost a lady; she had fallen ill the night before.

I did a little warming up with two others from the team, and then I got ready. When we were lining up by the start I found myself, again, starting next to, and expecting to be left in the dust by, Olivia. And now it started raining.

The team before the race (minus Jane who was on the loo)

Because of the heavy wind we would run an alternative route. This race was supposed to incorporate the Llandudno pier, but that had been changed. I'm not sure what the safety considerations are that made them take that landmark off the route, but off the route it was.

A view we didn’t get. Neil and I recce’d the Pier the (sunny) day before

We would first run over the promenade in the direction of the pier, turn around, do most of the Pier to Pier route, turn around again, run back to the the start and beyond, turn around one last time, and then run approximately a kilometre back and then finish. 

Right at the start, a lot of people run away from me, including the entire rest of the team, and Olivia. I didn't want to start too fast. After the first turn we had the wind approximately in the back. That was nice! And I happily trundled towards the little Orme, and down on the other side. I could still see Jane, another lady in the team. She was the other 50+ runner.

Someone else I could see was Gruff, a young Harrier. He must not have had his day. Normally, he is faster than me! I could remember the days when he was so young that that wasn't the case, but these days are definitely over. Nevertheless, I overtook him close to the turning around point, but he was not having that, and just accelerated enough to stay in front of me.

I had a feeling he was getting in my way, so I overtook again. This time he let me. And that brought me close to Jane. Then there was a little repeat. She wasn't having me overtaking her! But she sped up sufficiently to get ahead of me, and start increasing the distance.

With not much distance between us we ran over the Orme again. And we bumped into Tony, the decorated Harrier. He was not in the race; he was just doing a normal Sunday run in the other direction. I got a high-five!

When we had run down the Little Orme, we lost all shelter from the wind. It was quite a battle fight against it! Jane was doing better than me and increased the distance. And I was really looking forward to the turning around point. It seemed so far away! 

When I finally reached it, things got easier. I now had the wind in the back and could accelerate. And I did! I really wanted to run a personal best, and also, I could now throw everything out that I had. Exhausting yourself is fine in the last kilometre!

Almost there

There was still disruptive wind. It was largely behind me, but sometimes it came from the side. At some point I was blown several litres off course by some serious gusting. But I could tell that personal best was within reach. This could be the first 50+ PB of which I hoped I could achieve a whole list. It wasn't a tight PB at all; there are few 10 mile races around, and it had been set last year when I was mainly trying out my knees. But on a flatter course in better weather. My time then had been 1:16:13. I now came over the finish line at 1:13:42. Success! And 18 seconds after Jane.

Neil immediately found me, and together we quickly went inside. I wanted to get out of that wind and rain. Venue Cymru was race HQ and it was warm in there. Together we waited for the presentation.

In a way, it was a highly unsuccessful race. Since moving to the 50+ category, I had won a category win in every regular race so far. Now I was only third! And Jane, obviously, second. But I was still chuffed. And as this was a North Wales championship, and the fastest woman over 50 wasn't based in Wales, I did nab a silver NWRAC medal.

What about North Wales team? Well! The men came second after Staffordshire and before Cheshire. We as women came third and last. It turned out we had lost a very fast runner to an injury. So there were only four finishers; the first two had done really really well, coming 2nd and 5th, and the other two were Jane and me, bringing up the rear of the entire team. Not that we weren’t doing well! As 14th and 15th woman (out of 150), and 10 years older than the others, I think we did fine. Staffordshire had 5 runners in the top 10, including on the top spot. With a 55+ coming 3rd! That’s impressive. Not sure about Cheshire as their fastest woman came 6th as far as I could see, but I’m sure it all makes sense. 

It turned out I had been 46th person overall, out of 258. I was quite pleased with that!

I now only had one race in the diary for the next month: the Trawsfynydd race. I hoped there would be some last-minute additions. And if not, maybe I would have to do Parkrun again to get my fix!