It's always nice to go somewhere different.
Clevedon AC are a club who have been supporting our Welsh Castles Relays for a very long time - indeed, they were the surprise winners in 2007. As a club, they are slightly older than us, having formed in 1977. Their pre-race literature described the race as a 41st anniversary - but being a statto I found out that the race goes back long before that - it was first held in 1948 and hence this was the 70th edition.
The race, a single loop, isn't even over an exact distance, 3 miles 1663 yards, but that's the way it's been for a long time, making the course records of 18:28 by Ian Gillespie (1997)and 20:15 by Kate Reed (2006) quite meaningful. The course is pretty flat through the town for 2 miles, then there is a tough climb which lasted for 3 minutes before the descent back to the beach. It had a mixture of Nos Galan and the Round the Island Road Races about it - good crowd support on a cold day and a record field - 1070 runners (first time over 1000, so they were very pleased).
The standard of the race is always high. The race HQ is at the Little Harp pub (always a good sign in my book). It's only 2 miles from Junction 20 of the M5,so an hour's car journey.
One I'd recommend for next year.
Today's winners:
Luke Grenfell-Shaw (Bristol & West) 19:39
Emma Pallant (Aldershot, Farnham & District) 21:28 - her 9th win
Mick 195/1063 in 28:08 (6th over 60)
Edited by user 26 December 2017 20:20:13(UTC)
| Reason: Not specified