Snowdonia Marathon

Saturday 26th October 2008

Above: Me (Rob Mole) sporting the latest in black bin wear. This is the start for those who can’t read Welsh. Check out the clouds closing in.

This year's Snowdonia Marathon saw nearly 1400 runners line up for the wet and windy start with two B&R runners hidden in the sea of black bags shuffling about. The temperature was fine at about 8 or 9 degrees but rain and wind would prove to make it a tough race.

A packed and steamy bus ferried many of the runners to the start line to wait in the rain. No shelter meant many runners were feeling pretty uncomfortable before the start with the last load on the bus being the most smug by staying the warmest and driest for the longest, sometimes it pays to be late!

There were no pens for different paced runners and everyone shuffled to where they thought they should be. This led to a lot of passing in the first few miles but with the wide road and few runners this wasn’t an issue.

The race started off flat before heading up a steep hill after the first few miles that saw many runners tail off. The downhill to Pen-y-Gwryd and then Beddgelert at about halfway was fantastic although the wind and rain prevented any sub 6 minute heroics. The next few miles were a mixture of flat and up hill with the wind rain and cold taking their toll on all of us until the 21 mile point. That’s when things got really tough with a very steep hill which reduced many, including me, to a fast walk before we headed off road and across the mountain. Now we had to contend with muddy and slippy underfoot conditions as well as the cold, wet and wind. At about the 24 mile we started the steep downhill and were back on pace to destroying my quads and hurtling past other runners as well as those slipping over.

The final leg was the approach to Llan Peris and the final twist in the tail that had us running away from the finish and up another hill before we hit the final straight and the finish line.

It was a real achievement to finish this race given the awful conditions and despite not beating Roger Beecham’s slowest Snowdonia time of 3hours 38 minutes I was very pleased with myself.

A slate coaster and T shirt was my reward for finishing with as much tea and coffee as I could drink and biscuits as well as the all important silver blanket to warm up again.

It’s the first time I’ve done this race and it really was magnificent, well marshalled with plenty of supporters in certain areas despite the grim weather and an all round friendly atmosphere

Hopefully we there will be a few more B&R runners there next year, me included!

The race was won by Martin Cox, unattached in a time of 2:44:37.

B&R results were as follows:

185 place Rob Mole 3:39:28

846 place James Waller 4:47:42

1133 runners completed the course