Five North Wales Road Runners tackled tough Snowdonia half-marathon

Report by Don Hale

NWRRC had five intrepid athletes competing in the gruelling Snowdonia half-marathon last Sunday, which is said to offer one of the toughest challenges in the country.

Run along a very scenic route and set in the beautiful Snowdonia National Park, the race included wild, and rocky-mountains, hidden valleys, and deep forests, and it both started and finished at Llanrwst, which hosted the World Trail running championships in 2013.

Previous feedback from runners suggested the course should be a little more challenging, so event organisers took out a section of the course to and from Trefriw, and re-routed it straight up to Llyn Geirionydd, before travelling up and over Llyn Crafnant.

Stuart Culverhouse was the first club runner back in 30th place overall in a very impressive time of 1 hour 44 minutes 41 seconds, and he later described the event as ‘brutal but beautiful.’

His team-mates, Kay Hatton and Cheryl Frost ran well together finishing in 129th and 130th places but shared the exact same time of 2.09.18 and tied for 3rd place in their respective F55-59 age category.

And in addition, Jamie Tharme finished in 169^th place in 2.19.54, whilst Vicky Taylor completed the team placings with a great effort in 2.20.16 in 171^st position.

*The race attracted 271 finishers and it was won by Daniel Quinlan (Aldershot, Farnham & District AC) in 1.27.03, who the previous day had finished 2nd in the Conwy Parkrun. Daniel was closely followed at the Snowdonia race by Daniel Cook (Rugby and Northampton AC) in 1.28.47, and Richard Heath (Colchester Harriers) who was 3rd in 1.30.15. The Ladies race was won by Rosanna Andrews (Rugby and Northampton AC) in 1.38.45.

The full race results can be viewed via this link:

Click to access Snowdonia-Half-Marathon-2021-Results.pdf