Samuel takes Delamere 10k
Welsh international Rob Samuel made light work of the Salomon Forest Trail 10k at Delamere Forest last night, beating England’s John Brown by over a minute. Samuel, along with women’s winner Tammy Lewis-Jones, were comfortable victors after their dash from over the border…
The excellent Delamere course takes in some of the best forest trails that the UK has to offer, and heavy rain in the days before the event had left the course perfect underfoot after a recent period of dry weather. With nearly 350 starters, despite the weather, trail racing of this format seems to be gaining even greater gravity in the UK.
Both Samuel and Lewis-Jones were late entries to the event, having only decided that afternoon to run, but their journey from Snowdonia proved highly worthwhile at the end of the 10k race. International Samuel has had some injury niggles in the last few weeks, following a great start to the year which saw him run 30:28 at the Manchester 10k.
Rob Samuel
“Yeah, I’ve been back running hard for about three weeks now, after a 3-4 week lay off with a lower back problem”, he told MST, “but it seems good now, and I wanted to have a good run-out tonight. The course was great, and I really enjoyed the single-track twists and turns when you get into the forest. I really like trail racing, and would like to do more, especially as a lot of my training is on off-road and mountain terrain.”
His victory over fellow international Brown was pretty considerable, after he had led from the gun. Samuel’s time of 33:28 would be respectable on a road 10k, but highly impressive on a trail race. Salford’s Brown recorded 34:39, with Richie Edwards third in 38:18.
John Brown at Delamere
The women’s race was competitive up the the 3km mark, with the three leading ladies all within a handful of seconds. However, Welsh mountain running international Tammy Lewis-Jones used her off road strength over the last few kilometres to pull away for a comfortable win in 43:34. Oswestry Olympian Lauren Davies was second, with Stephanie Davenport making up the podium.
Tammy Lewis-Jones
Full results can be found here, with some great race images on Tammy’s Facebook page
