Conquering the Streets: Championship Round #11. CMRC Roar through Cardiff!!
An unprecedented amount of CMRC members took to the streets of Cardiff for #11 of our Championship Rounds. Roughly over 50 of us were taking part in the 20th Anniversary Principality Half Marathon, and boy was it a sight to behold!
There was still some of us missing from this photo stuck in bag drop or getting water!
The day was clear, dry and bright and for a few of us the perfect opportunity to experience their first half marathon and an event of this size. You may remember Tom Harris from the Fast and Furious Rounds? Well Tom joined the club this year and has completed his first 5K, 10K and Half Marathon events all in one season! Truly awesome and we can’t wait to see what next year will bring!
The course was predominantly flat, weaving its way south from the Castle walls toward the bay where an inordinate amount of people lined the streets at pretty much every meter. The course continued south to take a big sweep east to west across the bay, with views of Barry Island before sending us north back into the city for a variety of views across parks, lakes, the museum and theatres. Shortly here, it then sent us deep into the city for the return to the finish. The amount of crowds and people was absolutely unbelievable, there was a huge choir, drum groups, singers, bands, hundreds of signs, waving people, kids, you name it - it was there! The event finishers t-shirts amusingly ended up being red - I don’t know about you but trying to find one another afterward once everyone was wearing red was a bit interesting!
The race report for Cardiff comes from David and Ruth Alliston, one of our many Husband and Wife duos! David and Ruth are so committed to their running and love to join the morning run sessions every week. David is also one of our Welfare Officers and both him and Ruth always turn up for us to support in club colours and with fabulous pom-poms.
“David and I had never run a half marathon distance. The furthest we had run was about 14K, so when we signed up for Cardiff we knew we would need to up the distance a bit, which we did - very gradually along with plenty of shorter runs. We realised that it would probably take ua around three and a half hours to get round, and decided to use a jeffing monitor to give ourselves chance to recover along the way.
We settled on 30 seconds run/30 seconds walk and the monitor beeped faithfully and endlessly all the way round! Jeffing is great for slower runners or those returning from injury. We were never going to bust any records, or win any prizes for time, but even if we could have run it all the way round we wouldn’t have been any quicker, and a whole lot more exhausted.
The day started VERY early, as all those on the coach will remember, but it was good to travel together, and helpful to be with others who had run that race before. The driver dropped us off quite close to the start and we were immediately swallowed up by the huge crowds. We want to thank our Club members who took special care of us before and after, sorting out baggage etc and making sure we didn’t get lost.
Being in the yellow pen and waiting was a bit nerve wracking, but everyone was very friendly and eventually we were underway! The support along the route was amazing and we were able to keep the firefighters in full kit, in. our sights. We felt sorry for them as it was so warm and humid, but the bonus was that if they were trying to lose weight they will have succeeded. It was lovely to run around the bay and smell the sea, and cross the barrage. Sadly, I missed with big wheel!
When we reached about 17K I was done in, and had to hang onto David while we walked the rest of the way as fast as we could. Twice David held me up against the railings to straighten me out, and on we went. As we eventually neared the end, we saw Jackie Nixon waiting to see us in and it was so good to see her !!! We turned the corner board the finish and saw and heard the red crew cheering us home.
Thanks again for all your encouragement and care. it was a great day, which I am unlikely to repeat….David, maybe…!”
David and Ruth.
A huge well done to David and Ruth, we are all so proud of you and we’re so glad you came and shared the day with us all!
The race conditions of the day were so unpredictable, and many of us spent the first quarter of the race battling humidity and general race nerves. It was such an unbelievable experience, and certainly another one we won’t forget.
Shout outs for this round go to us all, its been a rollercoaster of a season with a plethora of illness, injury, general life-chaos and other such craziness. But the main thing is guys - you turned UP, you represented, and its more miles in the bank! For that commitment to the sport and the club well, you can’t put a price on that can you?
Well done everyone, what a day that was. Thank you to those who organised the coach and logistics, and our back of house team and committee who bring us these Championships every year. If you want to check out the Race Highlights, BBC iPlayer have the clips available to watch. You can’t miss the programme as Paul Scott ended up being the face of the programme!! Nice bit of club profiling there Scotty!!
Now we’re coming to the end of the season there are just two rounds left to go. With Bridgnorth 10K 22nd October and Nash & Boraston 10K on 19th November.
Its worth remembering guys, even if you don’t want to ‘race’ these and just want to turn up, your entry ensures the events come back each year. Especially if they are small local venues. So why not make a nice morning of it!
As ever thanks for your continued support and happy running folks!