Lytham St Annes Road Runners’ took part in the thirtieth Welsh Castles relay at the weekend amongst the worst rainstorms in Wales for many years. It was a credit to the organisers that the race was held at all, more so with so little disruption. The rain failed to dampen Lytham’s team spirit and the team achieved the highest finish in its’ eight years of competing in this event.

Starting in the shadow of Caernarfon Castle on Saturday morning the race consists of twenty stages over two days covering 209 miles to Cardiff Castle. The stage distances range from 8.6 to 13.1 miles. While some are fairly flat there are the six “mountain stages” which are particularly tough.

There were five newcomers to the Lytham team this year including club champion Andy Draper who took on stage 14, considered the toughest of all. At 10.8 miles it isn’t the longest but competitors climb over 1000 feet, mostly later in the race. In what is also a very competitive leg Draper did well to finish 21^st.

In stages twelve and thirteen fellow newcomers Tom Howarth and Kevin Ashworth also ran well, finishing 14^th and 27^th respectively. Emily Hargreaves travelled all the way from Austria to compete and was rewarded with nineteenth position overall and second lady in her stage.

Tony Croft took on the final leg on Saturday, which, at 13.1 miles, is also the longest of the competition. This is another tough mountain stage where competitors have to climb over 500 feet in the first 1.5 miles. Croft ran extremely well over the half-marathon distance to finish in just over 90 minutes.

The best Lytham performance however was reserved for the final stage with Nigel Thompson again excelling here. His sixth place lifted the team’s final position to 26^th overall ensuring not only their highest finish to date but also the best from the Lancashire clubs taking part this year.

Lytham Welsh Castle Results: Stage 1: Colin Nelson 70:12, 35^th; 2: Emily Hargreaves 71:02, 19^th; 3: Terry Hellings 74:30, 29^th; 4: Nigel Simpkin 72:03, 32^nd; 5: Bec Willetts 78:36, 46^th; 6: Laura Ashworth 81:50, 38^th; 7: Mel Koth 67:55, 41^st; 8: Graham Webster 76:03, 31^st; 9: Ali Smith 69:06, 42^nd; 10: Tony Croft 90:06, 29^th; 11: Mark Willet 86:57, 36^th; 12: Tom Howarth 69:17, 14^th; 13: Kevin Ashworth 73:59, 27^th; 14: Andy Draper 70:41, 21^st; 15: Willie Richmond 90:49, 31^st; 16: Richard Storey 71:46, 49^th; 17: Fiona Geldard 79:15, 54^th; 18: Dave Dunn 64:23, 19^th; 19: Roy Upton 83:31, 28^th; 20: Nigel Thompson 63:49, 6^th.