I signed up to this race in when entries opened up after seeing it on Facebook last year. It looked like a good one and it didn’t disappoint. It rained all the way on the drive down to Mountain Ash (and back) but, luckily, once we had got there all we had was a cool wind. I met up with some Builth runners who were taking part. We warmed up together and I immediately noticed the wind was quite strong coming in to the finish straight but good once into the shelter of the town and a nice little boost on the way out.
Once the midnight fireworks had finished we lined up at the start line for the race to start. It was frantic from the off. I got way too carried away and found myself in 3rd place at the end of the first short lap I knew I had made a massive mistake when the commentators said that the front 3 were on for a sub 15 minute 5k which is way to quick and the inevitable happened as I started slipping down the order. By the end of the next lap which was 1 of the 3 longer loops, I was down in 9th.
I managed to control my pace but I was still going backwards. By the end of the next lap I was down in 13th but I felt good again and decided to rally with a second wind and started a big surge to try and catch as many runners as I could. I started to pick off runners quickly and made my way all the way back up to 8th which I was very happy with and was bang on 16 minutes at the finish.
It was a great race to end the year on and I’m looking forward to racing in 2024.
