Don Hale Blog

Five club runners tackled tough Snowdonia half-marathon. Report by Don Hale. Photographs by Jonathan Kettle.   NWRRC had five intrepid athletes competing in the gruelling Snowdonia half-marathon last Sunday, which is said to offer one of the toughest challenges in the country. Run along a very scenic route and set in the beautiful Snowdonia National Park, the race included wild, and rocky-mountains, hidden valleys, and deep forests, and it both started and finished at Llanrwst, which hosted the World Trail running championships in 2013.  Previous feedback from runners suggested the course should be a little more challenging, so event organisers took out a section of the course to and from Trefriw, and re-routed it straight up to Llyn Geirionydd, before travelling up and over Llyn Crafnant. Stuart Culverhouse  (*pictured top of page) was the first club runner back in 30th place overall in a very impressive time of 1 hour 44 minutes 41 seconds, and he later described t...

Parkrun finally returned to North Wales and Bryn smashed course record. Report by Don Hale. Photographs by Steve Jeffery.   Parkrun finally returned to Wales, and to the Conwy RSPB site on Saturday for the first time in about seventeen months due to Covid-19 restrictions, and despite light rain and a puddle-ridden course, the event was welcomed by 310 muddy finishers, including many tourists, and several athletes from top clubs across the UK. Colwyn Bay AC’s teenage athlete  Bryn Woodall  (*pictured top of page) stole the show however, and recorded a tremendous new course record of just 15 minutes 16 seconds over this picturesque 5k route, which was voted ‘runner-up’ last year in the Parkrun “World Cup” contest. The SM18-19 runner knocked more than two minutes off his own previous personal best time at Conwy, set in January last year, and he also smashed the previous course record set more than six years ago by Andi Jones of 15.52 in August 2015. Bryn, who is about to lea...