Race the Train, Tywyn

Saturday 16th August 2008

Three B&R athletes braved typical Welsh weather to take part in this year's 'Race The Train'.
Our preparations did not get off to the best start on the campsite with heavy rain and wind, accompanied by a group of idiots drinking and being loud until the early hours of the morning. They were treated to a 'Max Mosley experience' of being spoken to in an authorative German accent and were instantly silenced!
The morning of the race was overcast and very windy but still a bit too hot to tackle the difficult, mainly off-road 14 mile course, shortened from 14.75 due to health and safety apparently.
I was cheered up greatly on the start line to hear from a fellow runner that the infamous 'ploughed field' which pretty much brought everybody to a halt the previous two years had not been ploughed this year.
The train sounded the start whistle and we were off, with the leading bunch of three setting off as if it were a 10km road race.
For pretty much the first half of the race we ran into a strong headwind which made hard work of the journey out.
The conditions under foot were much the same as the previous year, dry on the hills due to the cambers we had to run on and wet and boggy on much of the second half.
It started to rain just as I approached the 8 mile mark which was welcome as it was still too hot for comfort, despite the wind.
Several people (mainly in road shoes) took tumbles including the runner in front of me on the 'sheep trail' where it is nigh on impossible to overtake which led to the runner behind him exclaiming, 'that was nice of him' as we ran past - after enquiring if he was okay of course!
The race was won for the fourth year in succession by Gareth Raven in the incredible time of 1.18.15, even more impressive by the fact that he again opted to run in road shoes!
B&R positions and times were as follows:
 
24th Ian Keyte 1.34.11
274th Jimmy Atkins 1.54.10
508th Steve James 2.10.30.
 
There were 821 finishers and 201 managed to beat the train which took 1.48.00 this year.

(Ian Keyte)

Ian was 3rd male vet 45 but unfortunately only the first two got prizes.