Following a day and night of heavy rain, the weather cleared up just in time for the start of the Elite Senior Men, Senior Women and Junior Men’s race in the inaugural Karrimor Great Trail Challenge.

The (10km/248m) route involved two laps of the event field before venturing out on an anti-clockwise loop involving some very fast running on a flattish old railway track, a steep climb followed by a fast descent to finish back in the event field where Steve Vernon was victorious in a very fast time for the course of 31.57 ahead of Andi Jones in 32.24.

(Josh Griffiths pictured on the podium at the Karrimor Great Trail Race)

The 1^st Welsh finisher was Andi Davies in 7^th place with a time of 33.10 while Ifan Richards finished 15^th in 36.44. Our senior women struggled a bit with the pace for such a challenging course but still gave it their all with Elinor Kirk 13^th – 41.48 and Katie Beecher 14^th – 43.47. Our junior men were more successful with Josh Griffiths finishing 2^nd in a time of 34.15 while Nathan Jones just missed out on the podium by just two seconds in 4^th place – 34.55 with Gwynant Jones not far behind in 5^th – 35.06. Our junior women who ran 6km’s of the main race route found themselves against older and much more experienced athletes as Mari Carter-Davies finished 11^th in 26.45 while unfortunately, Cari Harries took a wrong turn near the finish to go way off course though, she did finally cross the finishing line in a time of 50.55.

There were also various other trail running events on the day including an Open 10k race on the elite course route, plus a Half and Full Marathon which ensured there was a hive of activity in the area throughout the day.

Report by Arwel Lewis.

Pictures of the Welsh athletes can be found here.