Race the Horse 2019

Saturday 8th June, team GoodGym answered the called and assembled upon a lovely welsh town to take on our four legged friend in a truly unique race. Race the Horse (or as the organisers call it, Man vs Horse) is a race that’s been going on for 40 years, an idea dreamt up in a pub, to settle the age old question of over long mountainous terrain what is quicker a runner or a horse. So every year a gaggle of 650 solo runners and 300 relay teams congregate in Wales to see if this year is the year of the runner.

After taking on this challenge 3 years ago, team GoodGym thought it was time to answer the call and bring Red Thunder back to the Brecon beacons. It literally did bring thunder as a group of us drove over the Prince of Wales bridge on Friday we were welcomed with a sea of rain and thunder, that was memorable but not a personal highlight. So a group of 47 of us assembled in a lovely bunkhouse for the weekend, a combination of solo runners and relay teams, before folks arrived they were teamed in to cooking teams to cook up meals for all of us and all the teams stood up and did an amazing job, on the menu included a cracking chilli, banging breakfast, scrumptious sandwiches and a banquet BBQ, everyone mucked in and did a cracking job, including BBQ under torrential rain using umbrella for shelter, GoodGymers could never be argued for throwing themselves fully into it.

Saturday came and although the weather looked grey and ready for more rain action, it appears it gave us perfect conditions to take on our four legged friends and hardly any rain fell during the race. So come 11 o’clock the runners were off (with the horses following 10 minutes later) I took part in the first leg and it’s a really stunning race, you’re going up and down through the brecon beacons and after a while a few horse canter past you, it mad but brilliant. It’s a cracking race with amazing views and really friendly atmosphere. As I handed over to my relay partner Mark it was left to get the mini bus to the finish to see the folks come in.

Unfortunately this year the horse won by around 5 minutes however pre match favourite ultra marathon runner of the year Mike Wadian, could only come 3rd with a quite frankly too quick runner from Yorkshire, Jack Wood won out of the runners.

Out of team Goodgymers everyone did flipping well with plenty of smiles on faces come through the end of the race, Graham Atkins came 49th overall with Helena coming 10th fastest female and Team GoodGym Bath leading the relay places, coming 6th overall in the relay competition.

Some of our team names were also noteworthy, including Usain Colts, the dark horses (ran in their black GoodGym tops), three trick ponies, the Canterbury tales, and loads more, my personal favourite was only fools race horses. Well played GoodGym.

Overall we had loads of areas come to the race was really nice hanging out with you all. This year it may have been the year of the horse, but also year of red thunder.

Nice one team, Tom