It's all over for another year.
Provisional results are now available here. NB The final date for corrections is the 29th. After that, results will be considered final.
Bill Scriven of Prestatyn has five albums covering the whole race on PhotoBoxGallery.com.
Ian J Berry of Winchester has pictures from the Pre-Start, legs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 11, 13, 15, 18, 19, 20, and the presentation on his own site.
Marcus Crompton has photos from Vale Royal's campaign.
David Rowe of Stragglers has pictures from Day 1 and Day 2.
Abergele Harriers have a report and photos.
I have photos of stage 20 and the presentation.
More pictures are always welcome. Thanks to everyone who marshalled, timekept, took pictures, gave out water, set up the start and finish signs, organised, cycled, accompanied the last runners, compiled and calculated results, and of course, ran. Thanks to the Red Cross as always.
Final results are here.
I’ll knock out a few database tables tonight or tomorrow. (I know: I should have done some of this earlier.)
Bill Scriven of Prestatyn Running Club took photos of Stage 1.
Sean McCormack of Abergele Harriers took photos of his team from start to finish. Abergele were also the first to get a race report up (or to tell me, anyway).
Dave Austin of Bristol & West liveblogged the event and posted a report on the Bristol & West site.
Photos from Blackpool Wyre & Fylde AC.
Write up and a poem on the Pontypridd Roadents site.
Photos from Interval the Spanish team.
Tattenhall Runners discuss the race on their message board.
Nigel Rothwell took photos of Clevedon AC and the Stragglers here and here.
Rob Evans took lots (99 to be exact) photos of Croups. I’ll get them up when I find time. I had a more interesting and tiring weekend than expected and am late with this stuff. OK Rob’s picture are here.
San Domenico have several pages of photos all linked from their results page.
Manchester YMCA have several excellent photos from the relay of the Welsh Castle.
Peter Giles of the Red Cross has produced maps of the whole 20 stages: High Res Route Map: 40.0Mb; Low Res Route Map: 12.5Mb.
We have had another excellent response for the race this year with 65 entries. Unfortunately, we have had to reduce this to 57 teams, hence the slight delay in informing you. The line-up includes 43 teams in the open event, 3 Ladies teams, 6 Veteran teams and 5 Business Houses.
Don’t forget that we will be sending out a large amount of information electronically over the next few months. Please ensure that your computer will be able to receive it. If you need to change your contact address please let Richard Brewer know as soon as possible.
If you need advice about accommodation then contact the Wales Tourist Board (08708 300 306) or visit their web site.
The Castles adheres to the code of practice introduced by UK Athletics concerning road running. Therefore we have a need for well over 300 marshals, so I remind you that you will be required to supply a group of marshals (probably 7) to help on one stage. We suggest that you use runners who are not involved on that day. Complete details will be sent out nearer the time. For reasons of safety, please note that 2 water stations will be provided on Stage 8 this year and teams will not be allowed to feed their runners on this stage.
If you have any questions, then please do not hesitate to contact me.
If you discover, for whatever reason, that you are unable to send a team, then please let Richard Brewer know as soon as you can. If you do have to drop out then we will return £100.
Within the next 10 days I will e-mail an important document TEAM REQUIREMENTS’. Please give it your serious attention.
Let’s all look forward to a sunny and enjoyable weekend in June to celebrate the 25th running of the race. Please endeavour to make this a very safe event and bring only essential vehicles to reduce traffic.
Stage 1 | Stage 2 | Stage 3 | Stage 4 | Stage 5 | Stage 6 | Stage 7 | Stage 8 | Stage 9 | Stage 10 | Stage 11 | Stage 12 | Stage 13 | Stage 14 | Stage 15 | Stage 16 | Stage 17 | Stage 18 | Stage 19 | Stage 20 | Finishing Positions
The photos I took.
Ten ten mile races, back to back. Then another ten the following day. Held over the second weekend in June, the Welsh Castles Relay is a team event, but each stage is a head—to—head race.
Seen from space, the distance between Caernarfon and Cardiff is not all that great, however, the country between the two is Wales, and every stage includes at least one climb or descent. Taking a cue from Le Tour de France, the toughest stages are designated as ‘mountain stages’ and the winner of each stage gets a yellow (or occasionally grey) sweat shirt.
The traditional relay format, with the runners competing through the night, was staged 3 times (all of which the host team, Les Croupiers, won) from 1983–5. The pilot run, again by Les Croupiers, was held in 1982 as a taster for the Welsh Tourist Board’s "Year of the Castles" the following year.
Only in 1986 did the individually staged race format take place, with Newport in devastating form, winning 13 of the 21 stages. Each stage starts on the arrival of the first runner of the previous one, or at the judges’ discretion, and the race pauses in Newtown on the Saturday night, where most athletes bed down in the community sports hall. And, it is rumoured, some drinking goes on.
There are six stages to this competition and the winning team will be the one with the lowest aggregate time over these six stages.
There will be an award given to the winning team of men (Kings), ladies (Queens), and veterans (Monarchs). In addition there will be an award to each of the individual stage winners, for the first male, female and veteran on each of the six mountain stages. Note that the rule for first veteran is given below.
The six stages are:
| 1 | Criccieth to Maentwrog | Stage 3 |
| 2 | Dolgellau to Dinas Mawddwy | Stage 7 |
| 3 | Llanfair Caereinion to Newtown | Stage 10 |
| 4 | Newtown to Llanbadarn Fynydd | Stage 11 |
| 5 | Builth to Drovers Arms | Stage 14 |
| 6 | Caerphilly Castle to Cardiff Castle | Stage 20 |
An award will be given to the first veteran (male and female — see race rule 6) on each leg, provided that he or she is not the first man or lady on that leg. All veteran runners are asked to make sure that the V on their race number on their front is visible to be eligible for this award. Air Products have again kindly offered to sponsor this aspect of the relay.
Last updated 24 June 2008
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