Fourteen members of Buckley Runners (plus Nicole) attended the Snowdonia Trail Half Marathon on Sunday 23rd July with Nick doing the 10k.
Registration ended at 08.30, so an early start was in order for most, although a couple of the guys took the campervan and camped overnight near Llanberis.
It turned out to be a fine sunny day in Llanberis, although, this does not necessarily mean it will be similar higher up the mountain over 3000 feet up. Conditions were good for as we climbed higher the cooler it got.
The full marathon runners set off at 09.00, with half marathon runners at 09.30 and the 10k at 10.00. The full and half runners were required to carry full waterproof kit, food, water and phone, just in case.
The half marathon route up picks up and follows the Ranger path after the first couple of 2 miles on road and track. The first 5 miles or so are steady climbing, with even a short downhill bit over some boggy ground. The last mile and a half are a bit steeper as we reached the top of Snowdon.
The route down on the Llanberis path was remarkably gradual but quite tricky to navigate with big boulders and stones and a continuous stream of walkers coming up the same path. At the bottom of the path it becomes a track and finally tarmac which did get steeper and steeper eventually leading back in to Llanberis. We were tantalisingly very near to the finish, only to head up onto a very steep old slate quarry path for the last 2 miles leaving us with a 500m dash to the finish.
Weather was great, great organisation and excellent setup.
Results
Nick Armstrong was 1st V40 in the 10k.
In the half we had a Buckley 1-2 with Elliot Cox 1st overall and Jez Brown 2nd (I.52.57 and 1.53.19). Chris Callaghan was 7th and Steve Bellis was 1st V60 . Dawn Urquhart was 2nd FV45 despite a broken sustained in a tumble on the descent from Snowdon, running the last few miles in agony.
Fantastic performances all round, great to see Iain, Amanda, Andrew, Alli and Ncole finishing this tough event.
Full results are here (just put “Buckley RC” in the search bar to see our results) http://tdleventservices.co.uk/race-results.php?event=2676
Cymraeg 
English (UK)