Tri Hard Harriers successful 5k on the Bay for Wales Air Ambulance.

  

*Pictured above - the start of the successful Tri Hard Harriers 5k race.

Tri Hard Harriers successful 5k on the Bay for Wales Air Ambulance...

*Members of the Tri Hard Harriers team (*above) prior to the start of the 5k race.

Special race report by David Gibson. *All photos by “ValleyBoyPics.”

https://donhaleblog.blogspot.com

 

On Thursday evening of last week, 435 participants ran this popular 5k on the Bay race along the Swansea Bay front between Blackpill and Mumbles, which helped to raise essential funds for the Wales Air Ambulance. 

Being one of the fastest – if not the fastest 5k courses in Wales - there were multiple personal bests (PBs) achieved in the warm summer evening, and 78 of the finishers were from the host club – a record turnout with others in supporting roles – and a true team effort!

Tri Hard Harriers has set a high standard for the organisation of such an event with full chip timing and an accurately measured course. On finishing, all runners were able to devour pizzas and consume bottles of beer or soft drinks. In addition, there were a series of ‘Spot Prizes’ randomly given to some lucky finishers.

*The first three senior male and female race winners are pictured above on the podium after a very exciting race with some excellent personal best times.

Taking the honours of first place overall was Dewi Griffiths of Swansea Harriers with an imperious time of 13:59 – breaking the course record by some 30 seconds! He was followed in by Tri Hard Harriers own Mike Roderick with a season’s best just holding off Ieuan Griffiths of Peak Performance Wales by two seconds.

First place in the Senior Female category was Naomi Sutton of Vegan Runners with a time of 17:58 closely followed by Hannah Williams of Swansea Harriers with Sally Pugsley picking up the category third place.

*The male veterans' top three finishers are pictured on the podium, with (*above right), the junior female top three finishers with their race awards.

The Veteran Male category produced a close finish with Craig Jones of Swansea Harriers ahead of club team-mate Matthew Harvey in second and Chris Tones of Run4All Neath in third.

In the Veteran Female group Tri Hard Harrier Stephanie Gibson finished in a comfortable first place despite pacing a friend! Llinos Jones of Swansea Harriers was second just pipping Katie Williams by only one second.

The Junior Female category saw Liy Williams of Celtic Tri coming home ahead of sisters Chloe and Sophie Hartley Green of Swansea Harriers.

The Junior Male category was won by Zachary Beddows also of Celtic Tri by just a single second from Oliver Cobboldof Swansea Harriers and Josh Barnett of Carmarthen Harriers.

Overall, a very successful and enjoyable evening’s running with lots of banter both before and after the event. It was a really good race, but I am bound to say that as I got a PB of 19:08 and my daughter won her category!

*This is a link to the overall race results: 

https://www.triandenter.com/results/tri-hard-harriers-5k-on-the-bay-2025

 

*All photos by “ValleyBoyPics” - https://www.facebook.com/valleyboypics/