Relish Running Races

Safe Race

Our new event format has been approved by Public Health England the Safety Advisory Group for Events. We have very detailed plans to ensure social distancing measures are in place through out your race day, along with additional hygiene measures in place through out the venue.

It is very important you familiarise yourself with our updated event plan, check out our safety plan and measures, so you can not what we will be asking of you on race day, and what you can expect from us. You can see all this info on our Safe Race page.

Enjoyable Events

Don't just take our word for it, here are what our runners think from our first two events back; 16th Aug Two Tunnels, 12th Sept Having A Mare.

Wye Valley Greenway and the Tidenham Tunnel

The Wye Valley Greenway will open for the time in its history on the 1st April 2021 and we are extremely excited to be bringing the first organised event to the Greenway and the Tidenham Tunnel. The charitable organisation Greenways and Cycleroutes has been behind reinvigorating this section of the Wye Valley Railway with a new lease of life; removing the old track, refurbishing and lighting the 1.1km long Tidenham Tunnel and resufacing a large portion of the route with a mix of compact stone path and tarmac. The Wye Valley Greenway is a shared use path, to be used and enjoyed by cyclists, walkers and runners.

The original railway ran from Chepstow to Monmouth. The last passenger train ran in 1959, but trains from nearby quarries only finally stopped in 1990. We are in fact based at one of these quarries for our event. dayhouse quarry, now known as the National Diving and Activity Centre, offers a huge array of exciting adventurous activities and overnight accommodation.

The race starts at the quarry station and heads along the rail path towards Tintern. Tidenham tunnel is 1km into the race and is itself over 1km long. There are great views along the wye valley as the two routes head to their turn around points before retracing their steps back to the finish line at the station.

Format

At present all our starts are individual, at 15-30 second intervals. Runners are generally seeded fastest to slowest to help spread people out across the course. The only exception is that a pair from the same household may run together on the basis that you run the whole event together and that you run in single file, not side by side.

All runners need to provide a predicted finish time to help us organise the start lists. This doesn't need to be too exact so don't worry if you think it might have changed come race day. If you wish to run as a household pair, or in the same wave of 30 when that is permitted, please select the same slightly obscure predicted finish time. Rather then selecting 50mins 0secs, select 50mins 1 sec for example.

We hope to shortly be able to offer waves of 6, then to waves of 30 runners or more starting every 10-15mins. These will be mixed ability waves.In time we hope to be able to get back to our usual wave size which is ~100 runners.

Notes

There are no cut offs for 5km and 10km races, we welcome runners of all abilities. Please note the event is not open to people would like to purely walk the event, but if you need to do a mix of running/jogging/walking to complete your distance then we are very happy with that.

Runners with buggies are very welcome for the 5km and 10km races. Please note the terrain is a mix of compact stone path, forest path and tarmac. We would ask you start at the back of your wave when we move to wave starts. Unfortunately none of the events are suitable for canicross.

There are great group discount rates for groups of 10 or more runners taking part in races of any distance, on the same date. 10-19 runners save 15%, 20-49 runners save 20%, 50+ runners save 25%. All bookings must be made in advance of race day to qualify for the discounted rate. We ask all groups to be registered at least four weeks in advance of the race date to we have the opportunity to top up our medal order if necessary.

Prizes

All our finishers receive a top of the range custom medal as well as a buffet of fresh fruit and other tasty treats. We also recognise a few of the speedy runners on the following basis.

Prize Categories

Top 3 male and top 3 female
First U20 male and female
First 20-39 male and female
First 40-49 male and female
First 50-50 male and female
First 60-69 male and female
First 70+ male and female

The final number of prizes awarded is determined by the number of finishers for each gender in a given race distance. If there are more than 100 finishers then the full range range of awards are made as shown above. If there are less than 50-100 finishers then the top 3 finishers overall will be awarded a prize. If there are less than 50 then only the winner will be awarded a prize. We do not have any winner's prizes for any of the children's events as would like to keep this participation focused.

There is no on the day prize giving because of the multi wave, multi start time format of the events. Prize winners will be contacted mid week via email.