Exceptional results, special announcements, births, marriages, and deaths, that sort of thing.
Vultures is what you are. No sooner do I get the full results from Mr Thomas do I find a reader piling onto them. How do I know? Well I got the link wrong, so it showed up. I didn’t even have time to check if it worked (and anyone can make a typo) but someone hits the site, sees ’Castles’ and lays in.
I’m sorry that results took so long. I have no excuses, and no explanations. For now stuff is in Microsoft Word Format (both zipped and unzipped). I’lll convert these to HTML and PDF and anything else (requests are welcome) as soon as I can.
I understand Wirral accidentally (and I had a sincere phone call with an apology, so I don’t doubt their good faith) kept the Vets trophy. This is now on its way to Alan Thomas and will be handed over ASAP. Again, apologies. A lot goes on during the Castles. To err is human, as the man said.
Posted by Dave at 10:52 PM
No sooner is one relay done and dusted, another appears imminently on the horizon. On Wednesday the 14th July our good friends at Penarth and Dinas will be hosting the ever-popular Cosmeston relays.
For the uninitiated, the race involves 4 legs of 3 miles (3 legs for the ladies) over a traffic free course. As it’s a distance that shouldn’t pose too many problems and also a great sharpener, I’d encourage everybody (and in particular new members) to give it a go. It’s also one of the great social events of the race calendar. Where else can you have a 3 mile blast, a quick beer and a BBQ??? See Sue for the ladies teams and myself for the mens, Ken Bray will be co-ordinating entries.
Posted by Simon at 09:30 AM
Since the original post here got lost, here are some photos from the race.
Posted by Mick at 11:59 PM
This year’s Castles Relay debriefing session will take place on Thursday July 1st at around 9.00 PM at Llandaff Rugby Club. Although initial feedback has been exceptionally positive, there is always room for improvement! If you can’t attend in person, please feel free to add your comments to this thread. Thanks.
Posted by Mick at 11:48 PM
From the runner who collapsed on Leg 16.
Hello,
I ran the 16th route Brecon to Brecon reservoir on the 13th during the Welsh Castles Relay race this year. I’d completed this run 5 weeks before in a lunch hour with no aches or pains (as a trial). On the day though, I was stopped less than half a mile from the finish by someone; who ran across the road with a worried expression and grabbed me, just before I collapsed.
The next thing I remember was that I was on the deck with loads of worried looking people and first-aiders around me. I lost the plot after that but do remember being very confused, cramped, dead tired, baking hot and dizzy. They covered me in ice and water and fought to gain control of my soaring temperature while I kept slipping out of consciousness.
Once in the ambulance I started convulsing and they gave me stuff etc and then a drip etc. I don’t remember the A&E at Merthyr but I ended up in a Coronary Heart Clinic with a shaven chest and wires all over the place. Interesting logistics going to the loo!
To summarise the next 2 days then -- I had oxygen, drips in my arm, 8 blood tests, a chest X-ray, 3 ECGs a day plus various pressure/SATs checks, permanently wired to a monitor and a full ultrasound investigation and what did the doctors find? A virus which was meddling with the normal beat; combined with the heat stroke and exhaustion would have killed me.
The good news is that the doctors proved (with all their measurements etc) that I have an athletic heart and should have no problems after this virus has gone.
I would just like to pass on my greatest thanks to the person who stopped me; the doctors in hospital reckoned that had I ran 5 more minutes, they may not have saved me. I would also like to thank everyone else involved who helped me and to express my thanks to the race organisers who made the race safe and well planned.
cheers
Dale
From: Dale Collins gisndale@tesco.net
Posted by Dave at 12:06 PM
Julian Baker, one of the cover stars of this site is being made into a respectable man by his long-time partner Nichola Williams. He celebrated by going paintballing and, um, getting drunk.
All of us together.
All of us together again.
All of us together in the Brasserie.
Dave Lloyd.
Kit.
Steve Lewis, "It was this big." And some tall guy with a big nose.
Julian and Andy Cleves.
Kit, Dave Lloyd, Andy. And now I seem to have a beer mat covered in the unreadable email addresses of women who want to be sent their pictures. If I decode them, I’ll do my best.
Posted by Dave at 12:02 PM
I got up this morning to find some comment spam in some old posts. (You’d know it if you saw it. It’s just a another way of attracting visitors to the same sites that email spam does.) I’ve deleted it. This just happens and there are various ways of dealing with it, but I’ve found the most successful — because they tend to go for old posts where it’s less likely to noticed by the site owner — is just to close comments after a short period of time. I’ve been doing that anyway, but I’ve got a bit slack lately.
I’ve now closed all posts composed before the beginning of June, except Dave Lloyd’s Avila Trail 45K Ultra and Mick’s head-expansion, though this won’t be forever.
This isn’t in any way an attempt to covertly stifle debate, merely necessary self-defence.
I may as well turn this into an all-out rant against all the spam I get elsewhere.
Because I track where visitors come from, I get a lot of clowns pinging my pages with headers saying they came from this or that porn site. The really stupid thing is that they visit pages which don’t exist so they don’t show up as visitors. And if they read the robots.txt file, they’d know that search engine crawlers aren’t allowed to index the referrers page anyway, so it wouldn’t do them any good.
I hate wasting bandwidth on these pirates and I ban them every time I find them, but they’re like cockroaches and keep coming back.
Posted by Dave at 10:48 AM
Bridgend now have a page of photos up here. Mostly of their own runners of course, though the one of Stuart Davidson finishing in Dolgellau looks strangely familiar to me.
Westbury Harriers have pics up on Page 1 and Page 2. They also note that:
No women has ever won a stage outright in the 21 years of this event, but Charlie Coffey came the closest yet, being 2nd finisher (and easily the first woman) on the 9.1 mile leg to Abercynon, in a time of 57.11.
So well done Charlie, and I did get your email. The results, whenever I get them (have Alan Thomas and John Upstone gone on holiday together?) will note your achievement.
More photos of all teams on stages 4, 13, and 17 are on http://dekoninck.co.uk.
There are now photos of Prestatyn Running Club on their own site.
Don’t forget the long-running discussion the greatest castles runner ever.
Wesham Road Runners also have team photos.
All Castles photos on our site are, of course, free for non-commercial use.
Posted by Dave at 02:18 PM
Talk amongst yourselves.
This was Jerry Cleal-Harding’s idea.
Results will follow ASAP.
Update: Photos, mostly of Serpies, are here and here (links now fixed). I took a fair number of snaps myself, but most of mine are totally hopeless, but a happy few may be up before I have to go to a meeting this afternoon.
Posted by Dave at 06:15 PM
Sue Neal is kindly putting the finishing touches on the travel arrangements for the Castles weekend. The details of buses and allocations are as follows;
Friday
Bus 1 - Leaves Friday night at 5pm. This bus is for members staying at Caernarfon leisure centre. Has two great advantages - assured of space in the sportshall and you’ll make the pub!
Bus 2 - Leaves Friday night at 6pm latest, but preferably as close to 5.30 as possible. This bus is for those who are B&Bing it and the overflow from bus 1.
Saturday
Bus 3 - Leaves Saturday at 7am. Should make the start of Stage 3. If you are running a leg lower than Stage 5 you should be on this bus (if you are not in North Wales on Friday!)
Bus 4 - Leaves Saturday at 9am. For the later stages.
Sue will be taking names and allocating places on the above basis, final details to be sorted on Thursday. If Sue is unavailable, I will take details and pass them on.
Good luck to everyone and smile for the cowbells!
Posted by Simon at 12:10 PM
Dave Lloyd (email) has entered the first running of the Avila Castles Trail, which takes place in Spain on 6 November this yr. It is an "ultra" event in distance, but only just (c45K), although the terrain is very testing.
Rules and stuff, which are in English about one screen down (I don’t know why there are 10 in English but only 9 in Spanish). There’s also a Message Board (in Spanish).
Luis, the race organiser, sent the following email to Dave which describes the test run.
Wild horses, labour cows, wolves and foxes howling while we go through. There was snow and the chance to evaluate everything was good. The goal, to simulate the 7 hour time cut off. Walk uphill and jog downhill and in the plains… well, the plains.
A bit later than the november 6 we had -4 celsius at the start. Started from Villaviciosa castle, behind the archeological grounds, the old church, a place anchored in time. We jogged a bit to warm up and up we go. Walking along a stony wall and some snow already (we are about 1200m altitude). We reach some curves where the snow and the height are hard to beat. We reach some works done by the Environment Dept. though we will see probably no snow the day on the race.
9.30 am give marvellous views and the light is great. We will be starting at this time of the day, and the granite stones and the valley have a different light. Even with no snow we considered to stop here, a steep part of almost 25%. We keep on, and reach a point where the uphill finishes for the moment. Calculated 1h45 and a bit of stop to refresh. Besides us, rocky blocks that we see from the start.
Something is howling up there… We had seen footprints thinking of dogs, or foxes, but these do not howl like those 4 grey figures watching from the distance. So we start running now downhill, on a gentle slope, miles of snow and soft tempo, nobody to be lost here. We turn left and reach a more steep downhill track, well marked, although you runners will have copies of the race maps. Some Zs put us downhill where pinetrees (see photo) and nice jogging let us rest and breathe. Fast runners will see slower runners climbing to their left hand side.
Snow gives way to water. Cascades, streams, etc. We are on 2 and 1/2 hours and we start calculating the tempo for reaching the aid station of Sotalvo within 3h30.
We do that, although we stopped to chatter with a forest policeman. So we are well into the limit to reach that point at the bottom of the valley, it is 1200m again. we can always adjust in the second part of the trail, we think.
Downhill has been nice and wide. The track is not a technical stone trail and a 4WD car will help us as medical and logistical aid. We cross the village of Sotalvo, seeing the castle at our right handside. We will have to turn right along a good track and right again following a more special and steeper singletrack. We name it the “rest of the runner”, because looking right we see the fabulous mountain we have climbed — never again — and we are over the 3 hours, facing east, searching the stones and walls of Sotalvo Castle. We decide that everyone must see that castle and a control will be established in the spot. If you see the picture, we reach the castle following a good track.
So everyone will have to climb and a control will mark you in the race number. The downhill is quick and through lavanda and tjim fields (our “side of the species") we reach Mironcillo within 4.45. We take some water in the village square, remember, all of you are required to do something regarding your drink and food, although 2 aid stations will be set. The trail is tough. Do not let your chrono to hurry you up. We had a very nice day eating some sweet stuff and drinking almost 2 l. water.
The uphill here is named “Dolorosa” (painful) a 1200m going uphill up to 12%. You can see it here and you will blame organisers, sure thing.
Our legs complain and there is no way to recover the happy tempo of the previous downhill. There still is some up-and-down for some 2 km before we reach the open side of the valley, where a nasty northerly wind blows ice into our faces. (No problem as these temperatures will not exist in November). For Dutch runners, it is just the type of westwind coming in December along the polders. We descend crossing nice quartz fields gushing out of the ground, before some agricultural leftovers appear and we reach Gemuno, a village that still lives in the past.
A second aid station will be set here. We are into 5h40. We calculate that, average, it will be sufficient to reach the finish line within 7 hours. We stretch a bit and keep on running and walking (our lack of training did not help at all). Gemuno allows retired runners to be evacuated by car from here. A bit of water, some mud, cow and sheep excrements and off we go the flattest part of the race. It is about km 32, so we reach those tracks that are not physically demanding but mentally tough. But, even crawling 50% of the route we will be at home safe. We jog along the “philosopher”, a wide track that makes us think what the hell are we doing here.
Very flat and ample, but looooong. We are bordering El Fresno in 6.10, and it is only 8 km to go. We can smell it.
We have a problem now: the problem is us. We do not want to finish the jogging but it is getting late. So we pick up a bit the tempo and looking backwards makes us shivery. Did we run all that?!! The city walls are over there, a long uphill (gentle and very soft) and we are facing them. Jogging downhill a little bit, and flat surface till we are there.
This is what we will see the last kms. Approaching Avila will show the fabulous and world known city walls. The “Murallas”. We are simulating in a perfect manner what is to be running like the last runner will do the race day. Our little training makes us crampy and tired. With some long distance running we would have faced it far better. But the course has a bit of everything, and itwill be of your liking.
Here and there, we are in the only asphalted part of the race. Some 200m along a road pavement (no cars then) that will connects us to the best possible finish line in the city: right underneath the city walls, round the corner of a medieval bridge. It is possibly, the world’s most historical finish line.
Posted by Dave at 04:06 PM
The big race gets ever nearer. So, in an attempt to ease any last minute administration worries, here’s a summary of what all Croups runners should be doing (or better still, have already done!):
1. Signed up with your respective Team Captain, Simon, Dick or Sue.
2. Given recent Health & Safety / Risk Assessment: you should have signed a disclaimer form. This is done on a Team Basis, and your captain will have the documentation. I cannot stress the importance of this enough!
3. Paid the ten pounds fee. Please don’t wait to be asked, your Team Captain will be busy enough anyway! People who habitually delay paying are doing the team no favours, so please DO NOT DELAY!
4. If you’ve booked into the Elephant & Castle on Saturday night, please pay RICHIE. Cheques payable to Les Croupiers Running Club - Thirty Pounds and Fifty Pence. The sooner the better, please.
5. Minibus transport. Sue is arranging this, and four minibuses will be booked. It would appear that more people want to experience the complete Castles Relay Package this year (well, why not?) and travel Friday. Sue would request your travel preferences by this Thursday evening (3rd June) - so she can arrange the times. If you don’t tell her what you want, then you will have to go with the flow (most people do anyway!)
Friday evening rendezvous will as usual be in the Alex. Put it in your diary NOW!
See you on the road.
Posted by Mick at 11:54 AM
Last updated 2 April 2007
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