NORTH WALES RUNNERS FACE SPANISH INQUISITION

 Report by Don Hale. Photographs by Steve Jeffery.

Some twenty North Wales runners will be competing with, and against, an equal number of Spanish athletes this weekend in a unique virtual 5k team challenge.

Kevin Slattery, the chairman of North Wales Road Running Club, has organised the event with the Fondistes Penedes Running Club in Vilafranca, near Barcelona. It will involve a total of ten teams of four, with two members from each club making up a team.

                                                                        Kevin Slattery

The idea is to create a new sporting friendship association with a mixed team of male and female runners, and the intention of trying to make each team roughly the same mix of abilities, based on previous 5k times.

Kevin explained: ‘Raimon, their club chair, and me, have carefully put together the teams so that the times of all four team members add up to roughly the same for each team. There is only 3-minutes total difference between the 10 teams, so it should be an interesting competition!’

Prior to the Coronavirus outbreak, it was hoped the Catalan club would visit North Wales for a series of competitive races, but this plan has been put on hold for a while, so this latest venture seems a great way to help develop a potential friendship base.

The event will offer prizes of kit from each other’s clubs for members of the fastest team, and for the members of the best age-related performance team. All competitors however, will need to adhere to strict Covid-19 restrictions, and must submit their individual virtual run times by Sunday 6^th December.

                                 Some of the NWRRC team who are ready to face the Spanish challenge

Copyright @ Don Hale 2/12/2020.

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