Dinas Mawddwy – South Snowdonia
Saturday 18th October 2025
Six Harriers, two supporters plus other family members made the long trip down to compete against 190 teams. Organisers, Meirionnydd Running Club had picked a fantastic area and race venue. The weather wasn’t great but the location looked superb despite that. Ali Palmer put it very neatly, saying the race routes had the very best of what fell running in the UK has to offer, steep climbs and even steeper descents as evidenced by both Ali & Tom having grazed upper leg areas after descending on their backsides as it was too steep to stay upright.
The race is divided into 4 legs- 2 x Solo and 2 x Pairs.
Leg 1- Tom Brown
Leg 2- Steve Mort & Craig Walker
Leg 3-Dave Parkington & John Griffiths
Leg 4- Ali Palmer
The team also had reserve John Rainford. Olga Wiggins had also travelled down to give support and film some action. Olga’s enthusiasm contributed to a really good team atmosphere, bolstered by young Sam Brown “Team Mascot”. It was funny to watch Sam aping his Dad’s warm-up routine.
Tom, despite being quite ill recently, got us off to a great start finishing strongly after a “crazy descent” in the words of Bingley Harrier Vic Wilkinson who knows a bit about fell running. 46:28- 105th. Steve & Craig ran well on leg two despite Steve having a heavy fall which shook him up a bit, this was on top a recent heavy fall on the roads too. They ran 1:39:04- 162nd
They handed over to team captain Dave Parkington & John Griffiths for the “Nav” leg. Just one slight hiccup at CP3 but a solid run for the pair, Dave showing the way with a strong finish. 1:30:52 114th gaining 4 places. On the final leg and after a long wait, Ali energised by a pre-race bacon butty ran a superb 32:44- 16th place among the crème de la crème of British fell running, gaining 28 places! As Tom Brown quipped- “Bonkers”. The team finished 108th overall. The winning team were raiders from the North – Carnethy.
A special mention to Dave Parkington, for organising the teams and going to inexplicably great lengths to secure our team entry. The only downside was the eye-watering £10 per car for parking in the farmer’s field. No wonder they were smiling as they took payment.
As Nick Park might say it was “A Grand Day Out”.
Next Year we are a little closer to home when Todmorden Harriers will host the event. Fancy it?
John Griffiths