Delamere Delight!

Having enjoyed a few weeks of good training, a race was on the cards. Andy, Eddie and I had decided to patronise one of the Salomon Trail races, held over 10km in the Delamere forest east of Chester. Unfortunately, Andy is still recovering from a niggle that has plagued him over the last couple of weeks and the team was reduced to just Eddie and I with support from Neale and the brown dog. Unfortunately, poor directions saw us arrive at the event, stressed-out and with only 10 minutes to the start, but despite this we were pleased to see late entrant and fellow Welsh squad and Eryri team mate Rob Samuel, lining up with the masses. The un-believable thing about his appearance, was the fact that on the previous day he had been in the sports science lab at Bangor university undergoing exhaustion testing for a fellow student.....try  3 hours on a static bike followed by a half marathon at race pace!!! The man is a legend.......nuts....but a legend! I knew that Rob' if on form would be eager to win, and, as I was also appearing in my beloved Eryri vest felt that a win would be good. The resulting race saw Rob' eek out a lead of some 45 seconds at 3km with me battling up until this point. However, I felt strong and over the following 7km I extended my lead to win by over 3 minutes....I was overjoyed. Rob comfortably beat, renowned mountain runner John Brown into second and Eddie was pleased with a sprint finish to 3rd overall. A great day, great event and great prizes....£300 of Sunito sports watch!