Borders League #1 – Caernarfon

It was beautiful autumn morning, that saw 35 Buckley Runners making the journey to Caernarfon for the first race of seven of the 2016\2017 Borders League.

This course is the furthest away to travel to from this seasons Borders League races, but it clearly didn’t put people off and it was great to see such a large number of blue vests everywhere.

It was not only good to see such a large turnout of the ususal faces, but also to see some of our newer members (Max, Nicola Kay and Phil Pumford) in their first club race.

This race is hosted by Eryri Harriers and the course is one of the most scenic of the Borders League, with not only the magnificent Caernarfon castle on route, the calm waters of Menai Straits looking over to Anglesey,  but also has the beautiful backdrop of the Snowdonia mountains too.

It is exactly a 10km and can be run in either directions,  however today it was the usual route. This meant a flat and fast first half, along the Menai Strait with a tougher more undulating second half inland.

The record of 319 runners (219 men and 100 women) for this course lined up on the start road. There was a minutes silence observed for Leo Carroll of Wirral AC, who died earlier in the year. Then the race got underway just after 11am. It was a very cramped start to the race, as the road is not full width, however it soon started to fan out.

The first 4k all runs along the waters edge, this half of the race gives you the best views, to try and take your mind off the effort. It then heads inland, where water was being issued at the half way point. From here it starts to get a little hillier, while not huge hills, they are definitely enough to make you work hard and even the downhills didn’t seem to offer any respite.

Before long, you start to see the Castle turrets at Caernarfon, leading you into a false sense of security. Knowing that while the roads here are generally in a downhill direction to the finish, they seemed to get harder. As you drop down the last big hill to the harbour at Caernarfon, with great views of the Castle.

As you drop down the last big hill to the harbour at Caernarfon, with great views of the Castle,.The cheers of the spectators was enough to give you one last push along the road before turning into the finish field for what seemed like the hardest hill of the day. Judging by the faces being pulled by all of the runners, everyone felt the same. That was it, all over, Job done.

Some great individual results from Buckley today