Silver Valley 10k - 6th July 2008

Report by Mark Davies

It’s a long time since I wrote a race report, it’s a long time since I ran a race, its also a long time since I did some serious training.  With that in mind I thought a nice easy jaunt around North Pembrokeshire on a nice Sunday afternoon was the ideal time to get started.

Easy Jolt, that’s were it started to go wrong, no maybe the lack of training was the first bit I got wrong....nice Sunday afternoon well that was correct.

I digress from the serious stuff.  Silver Valley race is named after the tin and lead mines in Llanfyrnach and this race meanders through the valley and onto the old railway line which carted the ore away [shame it wasn’t running last Sunday].  The race starts off in Hermon with 2 laps of the football pitch then for the first time this year it went in reverse from the usual route because of the wet weather we had during the week, more about that later, down to Glog up to Llanfyrnach up a 1 in 4 climb which must have been about 12 miles long to about the mid point of the race.  The rest is mainly off road through a quarry, farm yard, stream, farm track and lots of mud.

6 jolly jaunters travelled from the club to the race which had a good turnout of 39 runners. I’m afraid that I cannot comment for the front or middle runners but I had a jolly good fight with Mr Howells and Ian Hips for last place [not quite but not far off].

Once again Carwyn Thomas of Sarn Helen took away the spoils with our Dave finishing 4th overall.  Ellie took the ladies title nearly 4 minutes clear of Claire Clethero and in a very good 9th position.  Terry G felt the hills hard work but still finished well in 53 minutes. Dave, Ian and I finished some time on Sunday afternoon with no prizes except the mud we were carrying!

A very nice race if you like hills, no so if you don’t.....well run plenty of water stations and support.

Results for club members below:

 

Pos	Name	Time
4	David Astins	42.14
9	Ellie Jones	44.08
28	Terry Gover	52.49
30	Mark Davies	55.04
31	Ian Hipkins	55.33
32	David Howells	56.54