Race the Train is an off road running event trying to beat this old steam train. The course is just under 15 miles and involves mostly offroad running, some roads, a few short and very steep pulls together with a fair bit of running across steep hillsides either on single track or no track.

This years event had 800 people finish !! At the start I managed to get ahead of Angela by a nifty piece of footwork just before the gun getting a shoulder ahead … about 200 yards on she was off like a bullet and i only saw fleeting glimpses of her pulling ahead. We both found that once we got off the road and onto slightly rougher terrain we started to pass people and make up ground. Angela went past the leading lady at about the halfway point and pulled away on the return leg (which had by far the trickiest terrain) and ended up winning the ladies in 1:40:07 and 47th overal. I managed to beat the train coming in in 1:43:54 and 76th bloke. The winning time was a pretty amazing 1:21 ! It was a real fun event with an evening ‘do’ which included a top band and some excellent dancing … so good we were scared to get involved.

On Sunday we managed to get some good training in – up at 6am (to my horror) for a quick dash up Cadair Idris – fantastic morning and a great run – bit of a slog up the final scree (especially if you decide to ditch the fell shoes for road shoes due to sore feet ) and a great descent. A 10ish mile round trip in just over 2 hours. 9 slices of toast later and we were on the bikes for a 50 miles circuit round through Bala where we stopped for a cuppa and some grub – awesome lemon meringue pie ;o)

Fully recommend this event for next year.