Martin's Press Report - 7th June 2026

One of the most unique and compelling events in road running is the Welsh Castles Relay. Teams of 20 runners from some of the top athletics clubs in Wales and England compete across the length of Wales from Caernarfon Castle to Cardiff Castle, the route passing over mountains and within sight of numerous castles en route. Olympic athletes run alongside ordinary club runners and it’s a real festival of running for all those involved. Prestatyn Running Club have been one of the most consistent contributors to the event over many years and this time our team did themselves proud with a sterling performance finishing in 50th position after over 25 hours of running.

Managing and coordinating the movements of twenty team members over two days is a huge team effort and a tremendous feat of organisation and planning, special credit is due to team managers Jo Lewis and Dave Ellis for all their hard work behind the scenes. Thanks is also due to all the drivers who performed the vital task of shuttling people back and forth and to the reserve runners on standby. And finally mention must be made of the the principal sponsor Choice Handles of Kinmel Bay and all those who helped raise funds for travel expenses, etc,

In order of appearance PRC team members were as follows:

1 Lisa Lines 59:27, 2 Dan Liddle 75:09, 3 Steve Skates 76:40, 4 Zach Webster 70:24, 5 Matty Smith 74:40, 6 Darrell Jones 62:44, 7 Ben Thomas 83:46, 8 Dan Williams 70:36, 9 Meg Lewis 63:03, 10 Jonah Armstrong 86:21, 11 Nem James 99:11, 12 Chris Bennett 86:13, 13 Eve Manifold 83:02, 14 Ollie Birch-Jones 72:41, 15 Tom Coen 91:37, 16 Gareth Jones 90:37, 17 Judah Eastwell 63:18, 18 Tilly-Anne Jones 72:32, 19 Beth English 60:44, 20 Marc Jones 66:04.

The midweek racing scene continues to attract Prestatyn runners over a variety of surfaces. The latest Eryri Tuesday evening race involved a rocky ascent of Moel y Gest and a keen club squad made the long trip to Porthmadog, finishers as follows: 32nd Gareth Jones 44:31, 56th Ben Thomas 49:17, 84th Andy Thomas 55:55, 96th Neil Davidson 61:12, 105th Liz Martin 68:20, 106th Phil Howarth 68:34, 110th Nicki Triggs 78:54. 

The following day Llanrug hosted the North Wales 5K championship and both our runners won awards in their age categories: in 86th place with a speedy 20:25 was M60 silver medalist Gareth Jones and with an excellent time of 27:17 Glenda Roberts won the L65 championship medal.

Thursday saw the first race in the Deestriders Off Road Series. This has been a very popular event for Prestatyn Running Club in recent years and once again PRC were present in force. The multi terrain circuit was won comfortably by Tom Carter who finished well clear of the rest of the field: 1st overall and first M40 Tom Carter 24:09, 4th and first under 20 Oliver Birch Jones 25:38,18th Ben Garnett 28:51, 27th Ben Thomas 30:53 (2nd M35), 29th Paul Sanders 31:09, 31st Owen Jones 31:46, 38th Zach Webster 32:28, 44th Matty Smith 33:13, 55th Paul Robson 35:05, 56th Martin Cortvriend 35:19 (1st M70), 60th Phil Howarth 36:12 (3rd M70), 67th Owen Gibson 38:24, 69th Sue Hughes 39:04 (1st L65), 73rd Nicki Triggs 39:37 (1st senior lady), 75th Glenda Roberts 40:12 (2nd L65), 80th Liz Martin 41:32 (3rd L45), 86th Karl Martin 45:53, 87th Mike Davis 46:38 (1st M75), 89th Clare Manley 50:56 (3rd L55), 90th Steve Hatfield 57:11 (2nd M75).

Finally at the Port Sunlight 10K on the Wirral three club members completed the event as follows: 179th Ben Thomas 46:41, 631st Ann Claude Jones 58:22, 641st Nicki Triggs 58:33. 

The large club contingent running and supporting the relay route to Cardiff Castle meant that numbers at our local parkrun on Saturday were lower than usual, but curiously members managed to find their way to a fair number of other parkruns as shown in the following results:

Nova Prestatyn 

4th Jonathon Puleston Jones 20:39, 5th Lewis Pierce 21:05, 13th Paul Sanders 22:51, 25th Ed Shirt 24:30, 44th Olivia Trimm 26:18, 60th Reg Jonas 27:42, 69th Alice Archer 28:28, 90th Grahame Shone 30:31, 108th David Roberts 32:51, 147th Linda Friar 39:36, 148th Julia Evan’s 39:38.

Haigh Woodland (Wigan)

93rd Martin Cortvriend 26:40

Greenfield Valley

26th Stephen Langley 26:20, 70th Steve Hatfield 39:22

Haughmond Hill (Shrewsbury)

22nd Jenna Bagnall 23:29

Flint Castle

121st Claudia Smith 33:37

Penrhyn 

155th Katie Newe 31:55

Pavilion Gardens (Buxton)

156th Brian Williams 28:59

Ruthin Memorial Playing Fields parkrun

21st Andrew Carter 24:05

Y Promenâd, Llandrillo-yn-Rhos

246th Clare Manifold 30:51,

324th Rachael Peel 35:29

Keswick parkrun

33rd Jack Lally 20:54

Those who have been following this report closely may notice that the name of Ben Thomas keeps cropping up. In fact he has completed an amazing five races in 10 days. Hopefully he’s going to take it easy for a few days now!