Medallion Man

 

Every one's a winner!

 Not quite winners but  this is the silver medal  (70 years) team from  the World  Mountain  Running Champs at  Clonmel in Ireland. The  photo depicts me  (Wales), Alex  (Scotland)  and Ernest  (Northern Ireland). We  were beaten to the gold  medals by a team of  Italians none of whom  were taller than Ernest  so, as you can imagine,  I towered over most of  the field.

She won a tin of coke!

And just to remind you that there are two athletes in the family here's Vicky finishing her second Aquathon of the year at Chester. This particular Aquathon consists of a swim in the River Dee followed by a run around The Meadows which is the open parkland by the riverside. It's a very friendly evening event and I might even be persuaded to give it a go next year - provided someone else does the swim leg first. (The tin of coke is handed to everyone as the finish - it's to neutralise the interesting water of the River Dee!) Then again I can happily cycle - what I need is a Duathlon which is a Triathlon without the swim! Whilst we were swanning around Ireland Vicky ticked off the Clonmel parkrun - I was about to start my mountain race and (there was just enough time) I could have done the parkrun and then sprinted on a few hundred yards in time for the big race, but I took the (sensible?) decision to back off on this ambitious double. Just the sort of thing I'd have attempted a few years ago!!

Far flung corners of Wales

 

Beating the English!

It's a bit of a trek to Tenby from Prestatyn but I'd been asked to run for the over 65 Wales team in the international 10K versus England. Tenby is a pretty little walled seaside town in the bottom left corner of Wales, the best part of a five hour drive away so we thought we'd make a weekend of it. I hadn't bargained for the fact that on this particular weekend the place would be packed with swimmers, cyclists and runners all competing in a series of events over three days. However we'd booked a very handy AirBNB apartment (just outside the city walls and close to the beach) just far away enough from the noise and bustle of town. The run was fun but tough, I was the fourth Welsh V65 counter but we were comfortably ahead of the English V65 team - I even managed to finish in the first V70 slot - and got a nice medal! 

A 1960's TV series that was ahead of it's time, The Prisoner was vastly different to most of the other humdrum fare that was beamed to us from the three TV channels that we had at the time - and BBC2 had only been going for a few weeks! Each week I eagerly awaited the next episode. The series starred the enigmatic Patrick McGoohan and was set in the Welsh village of Portmeirion which, in the TV programme, was supposed to be in a secret location well away from British shores (there was much speculation that this was somewhere in the Baltic Sea.)

Not in Italy!

 Portmeirion is off the  beaten track    somewhat, it's at the  southern end of  Snowdonia where the  mountains meet the  sea and was developed  into an Italianate  village by the eccentric  Clough Williams  incorporating fragments  of and materials  from  demolished buildings.  It's now a bit of  a  tourist draw but, by being booking in as  paying guests we were able to stay for a  couple of nights and explore the village and  grounds at our leisure after the riff riff had  gone home.

Check Mate!