Pontyclun Road Runners

The team that went up a hill and came down a mountain (twice)

Well if you've ever seen the Hugh Grant film, the Englishman who went up a hill and came down a mountain you may know about the hill that is said to have inspired the story, known locally as the Garth. Well that was this month's challenge for the PRR team. The race is a gruelling but amazing route called the Pentyrch Hill Race, which sees runners, scaling the Garth not only once, but twice! With over 370m of climbing and just over 11km of running.

The PRR team joined in for the first time last year and was such a fab experience that we decided to do it again! Indeed it was actually one of my favourite races last year. We even managed to drag along some Pentyrch virgins to experience a very unique race (not sure if they thanked us or not though!). So this year we had an incredible 20 runners join in on a sunny albeit cold Tuesday evening.

The race starts off in Pentyrch before turning to the west and the ascent  of the Garth through the forestry paths to the southwest edge. The next is a flying descent on the north side before turning to the east to see a line of people ascending the Garth again from the northeast. The second ascent feels never ending, but once at the top, there are amazing views of Cardiff and surrounding countryside before you scale up to the trig point. Then there is only one way to go....DOWN! And boy what a fast and furious 2km down back in to Pentyrch to finish at the Rugby club.

Well, I am pleased to say that all of our 20 runners completed the course and I think they all enjoyed it. We had some amazing support (even providing much needed sweets at the top) from those PRR runners not running (i.e. those with a little bit more sanity 😜), which really provided some much needed boosts around the course.

I'm sure that the PRR team will be back again next year. Many thanks to the organisers for another brilliant event.

Here's just a few comments from the team (as you can see feelings at the end were a little bit mixed, but I loved it and will definitely be coming back for more):

"Views good but not worth the pain! A amazing experience running around a place that I grew up in and a race that's very close to my heart as run by church that my grandfather was a member of !" - Neil, who had just completed the London Marathon!

"Hmmmm mind the trees downhill with the sun in your eyes!!" - Mike, mostly still in one piece.

"The views were amazing.....when I finally managed to wipe away the tears with my new buff and lift my head up from staring at the floor in pain and despair!!" - Ross

"One of my favourite events this year :-) the spectacular views at the top made the climb up well worth it. It was fun, friendly and any event that finishes at a pub is always alright by me!" - Catherine running on her 'runniversary' (1 year with the club)

"It was all a bit up and down and up and down for my liking! (See what I did there!! - I'll get my coat!🙄)" - Miguel

"It was brutal but I absolutely loved it. Bring on next year x" - Hanna

Here's the results page for this year's race

And the photos, thanks to Johnny Lam

Inspired and want to know more? Here's the race website