Slateman Race report by Anne Johnson – 1000m swim, 50k bike, 11.6k run

I first heard about the Slateman three years ago from a race report in 220 magazine. Coming from a fell running background and just able to swimming 400m in the pool, the event appealed to me as a future goal.

On the morning of the race, Bill and I set off for Llanberis at 5am. Bill, not yet as enthused by triathlon as me, but there for much needed moral support.  I felt as prepared as I could be for the swim and my cycling had improved a lot. The run should have been my strongest discipline, but having had so much  problem with my knees and calfs, I didn’t know how it would go. The rain was meant to hold off until late afternoon but the heavens opened as I registered . Hadn’t taken any […]

Colin Brooke – reporting on Velothon Wales 22 May 2016

Tried out the latest thing in cycling events last weekend – Velothon Wales is one of the series of events held throughout Europe. The really attractive feature of the 140km course was that it was all on closed roads which meant riding either side of islands and roundabouts and taking blind right hand bends tucked into the right hand kerb, just like the real thing as seen on TV. With 12500 participants there was some congestion on narrow roads and at feed stations but, otherwise, and especially without having to constantly check for vehicles, the event was very enjoyable. During the early easier part of the route there were murmurings and warnings about the impending climbs, a long one up the Tumble onto the moors and a shorter one up the […]

“Great Wall Marathon” – kind of does what it says on the tin.  It’s a marathon, on the Great Wall of China – what’s not to like?  Slickly organized, it’s a marathon, half marathon and 8.5K “fun run” rolled into one with 2,500 runners (about 1,000 in the marathon itself) and around the quarter of the race on the Great Wall itself – passing East to West near the start and then West to East towards the end with (apparently) some 5,164 steps to be climbed along the way.  The rest of the course being a trog around some rural Chinese villages with a bunch of hills thrown in for good measure.

To reduce congestion the race sets off in five waves ten minutes apart from 7.30am to 8.10am with full and half marathon runners mixed together in the first four waves and the “fun” run […]