Reports: Welsh Castles Relay

All at Les Croups would like to thank every one of you. Both days were hot and tough, so your courage and support were greatly appreciated.

We’d also like to thank ‘temporary’ Club Chairman John Griffin, who did so much of the practical stuff behind the scenes, ordering the trophies, the sweatshirts and the t-shirts (which he also designed), and, as if that wasn’t enough, he packed every goodie bag himself. Well done, John.

Alan Thomas did a marvellous job of organising this year as every year.

In addition to his now-famous announcements at Cardiff Castle, Jerry Cleall-Harding also marshalled, and his way of slowing down motorcycles was particularly admired.

There are, as always, too many others to mention. The four teams who timed each race (maybe next year we’ll call them ‘Time Teams’ — although I doubt that’s any more likely than ’Mercia Ladies’ adopting ‘Sisters of Mercia’ as a sobriquet), the three teams who put the start and finish banners up and handed out the t-shirts, Rodney Jones and others who rode the leads and follow-up bikes, the drivers of the cars behind the last atheletes, and the rest of you.

Club Captain, Simon Nurse

First of all, what a weekend. If I was writing for the Sun I’d title this piece “Scorcher!”, “Basking Blighty!” or “Cities sizzle in sultry Sunday sun”. It was certainly the hottest Castles that I’ve run (in 12 years of ‘Castling’) both in terms of temperature and in terms of the yo-yoing lead. This year saw tremendous competition in all three categories.

On Saturday night we were in the unprecedented position of leading all three categories, albeit by slim margins. Saturday saw some excellent performances from the senior men — Mick McGeoch showing a typically experienced performance in the face of recent difficulties, Gareth and Stuart battling it out at the very top (excuse the pun) of their ‘King of the Mountain’ stages, Mick Tabor more than repaying my faith in him by winning his stage on his Les Croups Castles debut, Richie adding to his endless collection of yellow sweatshirts and Keith Davies very nearly becoming the second stage winner in his household (Ruth being the first). We can safely say that all of the men ran their socks off.

As we raised our glasses to the lead, I was taking nothing for granted. This race was absolutely open. Sunday began with another Castles debut, flying Aussie Chris Discombe on stage 11. Chris turned in an excellent performance despite doing his best to mangle his big toe the night before. The lead however was desperately slim with both Serpentine and Clevedon breathing down our necks. At some point over the next few stages the lead changed hands despite some gritty running from a number of Castles regulars and yet another Castles debutant, Julian Carter on Drovers (many thanks Jules, that hill is a swine). The turnaround came on Stage 17 when Phil Cook lived up to the mantle of Vice—captain and won his stage, taking around 5 minutes out of the competition.

If it was tense before, it was time to start biting your fingernails or — if you’ve already bitten them to the quick — find somebody else’s to nibble (alternatively the more flexible athletes could make use of their toenails if only they could face it). And what can I say? Matt Hurford on his debut finished 3rd, Alan Williams kept the opposition in his sights and Rob Jones — as ever — turned in a wonderfully reliable performance on stage 20. Castles Champions!

So a tremendous weekend for Les Croupiers.

Many thanks to all those who make this fantastic race happen — Alan and Dick for their exemplary race delivery, Vets Captain Dave Lloyd for being amenable to my team selections (he took some bribing mind you, at least 5 trips to the Cayo and all the Reverend James he could drink), Ladies Captain Jemma for her excellent planning and documentation skills, John Upstone and the results team, Paul Stillman for shouting a lot, Jerry Clealll—Harding for talking a lot and finally all the other teams for racing in the spirit of the event and preserving the carnival atmosphere. Finally I’d like to wish the Clevedon athlete a speedy and full recovery after his unfortunate bump on Stage 8. We sincerely hope to see you back next year.

Vets’ Captain, David Lloyd

What a wonderful weekend — I loved every sweat-drenched, sunburnt, croaky-voiced, bleary-eyed moment of it; and … what an amazing finale to the event — both the Senior Men’s and the Vets’ races going down to the wire and Croups coming up trumps in both; and … what a shock at Cardiff Castle to hear Jerry announcing Les Croupiers RC Veterans’ Team as winners — the first time for 17 years; and … what a feeling of pride and satisfaction in my team mates as we went to collect the trophy — because even though the Castles is all about taking part, being in a winning team is bloody marvellous!!!

Apologies for showering you with superlatives (I did warn you it was a personal view) but I actually think it is justified. Everyone who took part (whether running, organising, supporting or some combination of all three) can identify with the sweat and the sunburn (the bleary eyes and croaky voice go without saying) whilst the e-mails coming in to Alan Thomas (who is permanently croaky) are written testament to our collective experience of a wonderful weekend.

I’d like to echo Simon’s thanks to all those involved in the organisation of the event and to congratulate Jemma and the Women’s Team on a fine performance. Simon has also reported vividly on the nailbiting Senior Men’s race, so all I need to add is my congratulations to that team on a notable victory based on consistent performances from Stage 1 — Stage 20. The Vets’ race followed a remarkably similar pattern but was, if anything, more thrilling — except that most of us didn’t realise it at the time! A lead of 26 seconds over a tenacious North Fylde Veterans team at the end of Day One had become a lead of a mere 20 seconds over the same team going into Stage 20. A magnificent run by Ben Farag on the ‘Glory Leg’ ensured victory, with the eventual winning margin being 3 minutes 52 seconds. The lead had see-sawed between ourselves and North Fylde over the two days but, by the end of Stage 16, North Fylde had opened up a seemingly decisive lead of over 10 minutes. However, Dave Coles and Denis Murphy each managed to claw a chunk back, allowing John O’Shea to put us in a narrow lead and Ben to do the business in Stage 20.

Like the Senior Men, the Vets’ success was based on consistent and gutsy performances by the entire team, meaning that we were always in contention. The boys on the Mountain Stages (Graeme, Gerry, Paul, Terry, Richard and Clive) did a marvellous job of keeping us in touch (since both North Fylde and Bristol & West targeted those legs with their strongest athletes), whilst there were outstanding individual runs by John Diffey, Dave Bright, Mike Davies and Tim O’Sullivan (who received news of a family bereavement 20 minutes before the start of his stage in Barmouth). The two Steves (Lewis and Owen) and A Mann in stripey socks put in very solid and well-judged performances, and Jeff Aston (still coming back from a knee op) exceeded his expectations with an excellent run. Last but not least, a special mention for John Plain, motivated by the Castles to get off his bike (temporarily) and do a little bit of running — which turned out to be a major bonus for the team.

Why the shock at winning? Well, because the latter stages of the race are difficult for supporters to follow and because we had to get to our marshalling points in Tongwynlais and on the Taff Trail in good time, we weren’t aware that the team was creeping back into contention. Hence we trooped back to the gathering of the clans at Cardiff Castle, contented but expecting a 2nd or 3rd place finish. When Jerry announced the winning team it took a little while to register with us: 17 years of hurt — Three Lions eat your hearts out!

The feeling of pride and satisfaction in my team mates is easy to explain. They epitomise the spirit of Les Croups—half the team are involved in the race organisation over the weekend in addition to running their legs (or 2 legs in the case of John Diffey); they are all gutsy competitors who run hard but also know how to enjoy themselves; and they know enough about taking part to fully savour the experience of winning — all in all, a great bunch of blokes!

Thanks to everyone and, once again, what a wonderful weekend!

Ladies’ Captain, Jemma Nurse

The ladies team came third to some amazing competition. Winchester Ladies who came first, were blowing the socks off many of the men never mind the women. Both Winchester and Serpentine thoroughly deserved their 1st and 2nd positions and to be within 17 minutes of second place was a wonderful achievement. I’d like to give a special mention to all of the ladies who ran their hearts out on the mountains stages, Lindsay Emyr, Liz Sowter, Anne Fallows, Glenda Edwards, Carol Miller, Libby O’Duffy and Veronica Singleton. I include Veronica because although Dinas Mawddwy is not officially a mountain stage, it felt like it in the minibus! The heat was a major factor and we had gutsy performances from everyone. Our team put up an excellent challenge beating off the opposition. This includes Jo Pritchard, Yvonne Bullen, Ruth Davies and Julie Scholey. I now feel really mean not mentioning everyone else as I know everyone did us proud.

As you can already see, Dave and Simon are absolutely over the moon and may have had the odd Belgium beer or two to celebrate on Sunday night. I don’t think I need to add anything to their summaries, the weather was definitely hot, the support fantastic and the race organisation was brilliant as ever. To add to their thanks, I’d like to include Katie and Gareth who helped cycle marshal and drive the minibus leaving me free to concentrate on our team. I’m looking forward to a successful 25th anniversary in 2007.