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Wet and windy weather greeted the 1600 runners who descended on Tywyn for the Various events of “Race the Train”.

I had entered the last race of the day which was the 14mile Rotary challenge.

970 runners crammed onto the start line, all of whom wanted to be on the front to get the best start possible. I lined up as close to the front as I possibly could and waited nervously for the starting whistle sounded by the train. Eventually at 2.05 the whistle went and we were off. At the beginning the downhill made for a fast start and I found myself passing people as I tried to make my way as close to the front as possible.

I had done the race last year and was quite disappointed with my performance, although I beat the train easily I was hoping for a better time and position than 1hr.41m and 93place, in my mind this is what wanted to beat.

We ran through Tywyn high street and the support from the locals was brilliant. For the next 3 miles I was averaging about 6minute per mile and at that point it started to turn into more of a trail race as the terrain became more undulating and slippery. I had made the decision to wear my fell shoes as I knew that the route would be slippery and with all the wet weather I was happy it was the right one. For the next 4 miles I tried to relax and preserve energy as I knew that the last seven miles were to be a lot harder than the first seven. I reached the turn and located about mid 30’s and still feeling fresh, was happy with my position.

On the next steep hill I made an effort to pass a couple of people as I knew the next mile would be single file and that was the place for me to make an effort with my fell shoes on the slippery sheep track. I caught a group of about five people and the short piece of fire road gave me an opportunity to sprint past before the very steep and slippery decent where I knew I could open up a bit of a gap. I looked back on the next climb up from Dolgoch and could see a big gap behind, so I was happy. By now I was starting to tire but I knew that I had to push on regardless. With 3 miles to go I looked at my watch and could see that I had 18 minutes to try and beat 1h.35m. I looked behind me and that group were not catching me so I pushed on. With the last mile to go I knew I had less than 6 minutes to get under that time and with one of the men from the group just passing me I got onto his shoulder and tried my best to stay there. With 500 meters to go he had opened up a gap of about 10 seconds so I gave up trying to catch him. By now I was really tired but with 50 meters to go I managed a sprint up the hill to finish!

I stopped the clock at 1hr.34m.45sec and finished in 32nd place. I was very happy, very tired, very stiff and increasingly cold as the rain and wind hadn't really stopped for the whole race. Now I’m looking forward to next year where I plan on going under 1.30.