Welsh Castles Relay 2019

Review by Billy Hayton

 

 

 

 

So there we have it… Another castles weekend has come and gone and what a weekend it has been.
Over the last two days almost a third of the clubs members, both runners and marshals, have given their absolute all to showcase what a phenomenal club we have become.

Outright stage wins for Ewan Short, Andrew Hughes and Darren Bishop, and veteran victories for Sam Ryall and Simon Lewis (monarch of the mountain) proved to be some of the running highlights that will have almost certainly secured the senior team a 2nd overall place and 1st Welsh team (pending results confirmation).

This year we also fielded a full veterans team which certainly demonstrates what depth we have across the board at the club with everyone stepping up to the plate to take on the various challenging stages. I’m sure the results will show this team held their own in the overall veteran standings over the course of the weekend.

There were also many non/running highlights. Ceri-anne’s marvellous array of outfits never fail to disappoint whilst Juan and Ewan turning up at the Llanover estate, Abergavenny rather than the Llanover pub, Pontypridd pick up point on Saturday morning is not something we will let them forget any time soon.

As a club I think we owe Mick McGeoch and his team a big thank you for organising and hosting a cracking weekend of racing. One that no doubt takes tireless hours of effort to arrange and one we continue to look forward to each year.

We should thank our welsh rivals at Les Croupiers RC and Aberdare Valley Amateur Athletic Club for providing us with great local competition all weekend which certainly helped to push us all on to run harder and faster.

Finally on behalf of everyone who took part and enjoyed any part of this weekend, a massive thank you to our Chairman Paul Graham for organising the ins and outs of getting both of our teams into the event whilst doing everything he can to ensure a smooth and organised weekend for all of our members. It’s events like these where Paul’s passion towards the club’s development really shines through and I can’t think of a better guy to continue to keep taking us on to greater heights.

So there we have it. Castles Relay 2019. Every year we keep getting better. There is only one thing left to achieve… Roll on 2020.

2019 Results