News Report 6th March 2006

Prior to the arrival of last weekends snow, a team of 5 local athletes headed to Clwyd to take part in the Village Bakery Wrexham Half Marathon which was also chosen as the 2006 North Wales Championship Race over the distance.

The first of the 5 to complete the 13.1mile course was Criccieth veteran Malcolm Taylor who completed the challenge in 1hr 40.29mins. Next home and claiming victory in the female veteran over-60 category was Brenda Jones of Llanelltyd who set a new age group category record for the Wrexham event, which she completed in 1hr 44.56mins. There was another promising performance from Rob Thomas, also of Llanelltyd, who led home Marit Evans of Dolgellau in respective times of 1hr 51.20mins and 1hr 52.23mins. The local turnout was completed by the ever-reliable Sheila Symonds who claimed victory in the female over-70 category in a tremendous time of 2hrs 43.45mins.

Further afield, Kate Williams of Aberdyfi has been putting the final touches to her preparations for the forthcoming Flora London Marathon in April in which she aims to raise over £1,000 for the Breast Cancer Campaign. Her latest outing was at the final event of the three race Tricoaching UK series held over a 15.4mile multi terrain course in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. A finishing time of 1hr 27.00mins saw a steady improvement in her time from the second race in the series, which bodes well for the 26.2mile challenge just around the corner!

Finally another award has recently been presented to the current Cambrian News sponsored Meirionnydd Sports Person of the Year for 2005, namely Brenda Jones. On this occasion recognition has been received from the North Wales Regional Athletics Board who presented the Llanelltyd based athlete with the trophy for North Wales Master Female Road Runner Of The Year, 2005.

A.Unwin