Ras Cors Caron

18th February 2007

Report by Terry Dobson

The Tregaron half-marathon starts at the leisure centre in Tregaron, which it seems does not normally get many customers, because it has just one gents toilet & only enough hot water for three people to have a shower per day. Maybe the reason it does not get many customers is that no-one can find it, as it is cunningly hidden away behind an agricultural equipment dealership & a horsebox, with no signs anywhere to indicate where it is. In spite of this six Tri Club members managed to find the centre on a glorious Sunday morning in February & set off on a course which had been described to me as six miles uphill then downhill then flat all the way to the finish. What I was not told was that the first six miles also contained lots of downhill, immediately followed by more uphill, followed by more downhill, immediately followed by more uphill & so on. When you got to the top of the uphill bits though, the views were spectacular. One of these views was of Adie Howarth storming off ahead of me with the leaders on his way to finishing in 26th place overall in an outstanding 1 hour 33 minutes.

I also have to give a special mention to Lucy Elcomb who finished eight minutes faster than last year looking comfortable in 1 hour 52 minutes, as I am still ashamed that I completely omitted her from my Cardiff half-marathon report.

Continuing his bid to leave the Picnic Club, Dave Howells was very pleased with his personal best, & even more pleased that he also won the sprint to the showers, where he used up all the hot water in the tank to make up for missing the hot showers every time he has run this race before.

For me it was a chance to put my new alternative training plan to the test. After 10 miles my legs had had enough so I have to conclude that the latin ballroom dancing lessons for which I have been missing Tuesday night training sessions don’t prepare you for half-marathons. My last 3 miles were more of a slow rumba than a quickstep. However dancing lessons are less painful than running up Hill Lane and the instructors are prettier than Dave & Alex. And the dance costumes & shoes are only slightly more brightly coloured than what Jim Buck wears for training sessions.

Anyway the mid-Wales scenery was wonderful, the T-shirt was well above average & the bowl of cawl afterwards was delicious, so I had no complaints about my trip to Tregaron.

 

Name	Time
Adrian Howarth	1:33:25
Terry Dobson	1:44:19
Lucy Elcomb	1:52:35
Dave Howells	1:53:15
Richard Brown	1:57:16
Val Brown	1:57:16

For full results, please go to the CSA website.