Snowdonia Marathon weekend - 25-27 October 2013

This year ten of us made the time-honoured trip to North Wales to help out at the 31st Marathon Eryri (Snowdonia Marathon) on Saturday 26th.  As usual we manned the Bryn Gwynant (8.5 miles) and Llyn Dinas (11 miles) drinks stations and then helped out at the finish in Llanberis.

Llyn Dinas feedstation at 11 miles

This year for the first time each runner had their name printed on their race number which meant we could encourage runners by name (ie 'Go Dai' rather than 'Come on Stockport' or 'Looking good #1234').

Back at the finish we wrapped runners in foil blankets, handed them commemorative coasters and directed them to the baggage reclaim/refreshments building.  Up until this point the weather had been mild and dry but proper marathon weather (driving rain!) arrived at 3pm and we had an hour getting wet until we were stood down.

At the finish in Llanberis

The National Trust rangers were very appreciative of our help and asked if we ever visited Snowdonia for 'normal' conservation weekends.  The offer was made of accommodation plus worktasks so perhaps in 2014 we will have a weekend (say) rhodybashing at Craflwyn.

Back at the basecamp we had a tasty supper of Lentil & vegetable cottage pie and Apple crumble & custard.  This was followed by a surprise cake for Ally, organised by Sue, to wish her well from all of us because she leaves Manchester soon for Scotland.  The jam-filled sponge was covered in icing and decorated with a montage of photos of Ally during her four years in the group.  Ally - we will all miss you and wish you the very best for your new life north of the border.  Do keep in touch!

Bye Ally, we will miss you!!

The skies cleared late Saturday evening and we had fantastic views of the Milky Way, thousands of stars and a shooting star.  In the early hours it grew stormy and was very breezy at breakfast time this morning... not that that stopped Daniel and Matt going for a four-mile run!

We were keen to get home sooner rather than later before the 'worst storm since 1987' arrives and left the basecamp at noon, chasing rainbows across the moors all the way to Denbigh.