UKC

Saturday morning we (wife and I) leave home for a week to help marshalling this year's DB, our third race as Marshalls and looking forward to meeting some old team friends again. Thursday night campsite is at our local pub, so hoping for a pint!
We also have friends running, but anyone else running? Or thoughts on the race outcome?
All runners have trackers and can be followed on the website, hoping our Welsh weather stays fair and you enjoy the race.

In reply to Moley:

Good on you mate - hope you have a great time.

In reply to Moley:

Tracker:

http://event.opentracking.co.uk/dragonsb17/

Its a way of passing time through the week, watching other people suffer (virtually, in real time)...

In reply to Ste Brom:

Trackers are locking up/not responding so it just looks like most are stranded on the Carneddau. I had the same issue with an ultra on the South coast where the trackers were only picking up French masts and it looked like everyone was at Portland...

Update blurb on the website:

"14:30 UPDATE
The MANX - BT telecoms have now resolved the networking issue, but we're still experiencing the same problem! Investigations by BT and MANX continue.
The trackers are storing the route points internally. As each tracker moves into a an area with mobile signal it will attempt to reconnect to the network and send the info to our servers.
Meantime the full leaderboard will remain out of date.
We sincerely apologise
Open Tracking"

In reply to richprideaux:

Looks like Jim Mann has trotted round day 1 in 7:25 to get a 45 minute lead. Hard to see him getting beaten from there.

In reply to ablackett:

15 minute time penalty now though for some mixup with checkpoint locations on Crib Goch...

In reply to ablackett:

Got an 8 minute deficit after day 4 having gained back about 15 minutes on Marcus today, not a bad day compared with the screw up on day 3 which cost him an hour or so!

In reply to Moley:

Almost there! Watch the final bit here: http://event.opentracking.co.uk/dragonsb17/

In reply to mountainbagger:

Looking like he'll complete the final 63km / 2200m day in a little over 6 hours. Astonishing.

In reply to Moley:

I've just arrived home with wife - in shreds from a hard week on the marshalling team!

Brilliant race and great competitors with wonderful atmosphere, a credit to everyone. The sun baked down all week (a little too much for most runners and us) and then last night after the prize giving we had a tremendous thunderstorm overhead - the dragon roared and issued it's challenge for 2019..........

Day 4 camp was in my village and the pub did a great trade in food and beer, turned out a very popular site with the river and pub - what's not to like after a scorching day in the mountains.
Best of all, there was some good racing at the front end with the mens and womens results in the balance right till the last day, some awesome running at the elite end and hard grafting all through the field to the last finishers.

In reply to Moley:

Thanks your efforts Moley - I was amazed by just how hard the event team worked throughout the entire week. And if that's your village, you certainly live in a beautiful place.

In reply to Moley:
Thanks for highlighting this - I managed to catch them coming up the hill behind the house on the way out of Machynlleth on day 3 and got some photos: https://flic.kr/s/aHsm1fjum5
Inspiring to see and ridiculous looking north over the hills they'd been over - Cader, the Tarrens and Pumlumon are decent days out in themselves, to do all three in a day is something else, without thinking about the 2 days they'd already done.
Top effort to all that were involved!

In reply to Deri Jones:

Good photos, glad you made it to see them.
It's a very emotional event, obviously for all the competitors and their personal battles but also for the marshals. We all tend to bond with certain runners who are friends and acquaintances or from other countries (like the Japanese honeymooners) and encourage them on, there are also a few tears as we say goodbye to each other when we finally pack up - another 2 years till we meet again - though we said "never again, too old for this" I know when 2019 comes around I won't be able to resist joining the team if able!

Anything can happen however fit you are, two friends were doing fine to finish well, one pulled a muscle and was out, the other had a stress fracture and hospital visit, but I expect to see them both there in 2019 to slay the dragon.
After the finish Jim Mann came round and individually thanked every marshal he could find, which epitomises the race and atmosphere.