Llandudno 10k, Sunday 8th February
Having left Wilmslow in the mist and travelled through alternate patches of sun and cloud, it was a treat to run in the sunshine at Llandudno.
There was quite a crowd of us from group 3, all bunched together at the start on the promenade. It wasn’t long before we began our ascent of the Great Orme. Soon my peers in group 3 were overtaking me, Chris, Patrick, Gareth, Andy D, Christian, even Andy W who had run for 3 ½ hours the day before. In fact I didn’t find the ascent of the Great Orme as hard as I had during the Conwy half marathon. Maybe I’d built it up to be steeper than it was. There were some periods of respite as it plateaued or indeed descended for a short time.
When we reached the café at the top I knew things were going to get easier. I started to pick off people as I hurled myself down the hill, first Patrick who in fact had a niggle in his leg. As the route flattened I could see Andy Dodd ahead, so I tried to keep a steady pace and eventually overtook him. As we came down to the promenade I could see Tony and Chris in the distance. Huma and Christian were not far in front of Chris but certainly out of my sight. I didn’t really have much chance of reaching them but as we ran along the sea front I was closing in on Tony, until he decided to do a sprint finish from 100 yards.
The last kilometer to the finish seemed endless but we were cheered in by the faster runners from WRC who were doing their warm down.
It was fantastic to run in such spring like conditions. I was actually over dressed and pulling up my sleeves by the second half. It’s a very scenic route, well worth the drive, especially when we got back to Wilmslow to find that the mist had not lifted! Thirty one WRC runners made the journey, unfortunately half of them were from group 1 or 2 so for the likes of me, not a good race for points. Damian won , Sharon was third lady and led the ladies’ team to victory with Janine and Di Bygrave. There were plenty of category winners too.