A MAN from Abergele celebrated first place in the Snowdonia Marathon on Saturday (October 29).

Daniel Kashi, who now trains with Sale Harriers in Manchester, won the race in a time of 2:39:51, described by John Jones of Abergele Harriers as “the hardest marathon in the UK”.

Meanwhile, nine members of North Wales Road Running Club (NWRRC) also completed the tough course in extremely challenging weather conditions.

These included driving rain and gusty winds, with two other runners forced to drop out through injuries and sheer exhaustion.

John Dalzell was the first club man home in three hours, 56 minutes and 21 seconds.

He was followed by additional endurance and ultra-running couple Ben Hudson and his wife Sarah Ferguson-Hudson.

Ben finished 263rd in 3.53.35, and Sarah was the 46th female finisher, and 326th overall, in 4.00.31.

Stuart Culverhouse finished in 408th place in 4.08.37, with Charlotte-Rose Wilton-Jones the 107th female, in 573rd place overall in 4.24.32.

Hannah Griffith ran the course with her sister, Siwan Kalatzi, and the pair finished strongly together.

Hannah was the 354th female and 1,302nd overall in 5.37.01, with Siwan recording 5.36.58; she was just one place ahead in 5.36.58.

Cai Roberts ran with his partner Kelly Alford and club colleague Vicky Taylor. Cai finished in 1,326th place in 5.38.25, with Kelly and Vicky sharing the same time and consecutive places.

Unfortunately, Jamie Tharme and Mandy Owen from NWRRC both had to drop out of the race.

Jamie later said: “I had a really bad back coming into this, and I wasn’t even sure I’d be starting, so just said I would see how I got on.

“I’m shocked to have reached 27k, but just couldn’t go any further.”

Mandy added: “This was my first ever DNF. I pulled out at mile 18.

“I felt sick and all the stopping and starting made my legs stop working, so a minibus took us back to the start and gave us some mini bars, so that cheered me up a bit.”

The race had 1,658 finishers. The link to the provisional results at the Snowdonia marathon can be found at: www.tdleventservices.co.uk/event-results/events?event=3838.

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Elsewhere, NWRRC veterans Kay Hatton and Richard Eccles have both been selected to represent North Wales at the Welsh Inter-Regions cross-country challenge in Monmouth on November 19.

The duo will form part of a large contingent of junior and senior athletes selected on merit.

And Steve Forsyth and Will Williams of NWRRC took part in the hilly Bridgnorth 10k race yesterday, with both athletes winning their respective age categories.

Steve finished in fifth place overall and won his MV40-49 age cat in 36.23, while Will also won his MV50-59 age cat in 17th place in 39.55.

He said he was pleased with a much-improved performance from the previous week at Knutsford.