Chorley athlete hits the peak in Wales

9:15am Wednesday 6th August 2008

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Chorley’s Katie Ingram answered a last minute call up to run for England in the Snowdon International Mountain Race – and then shocked her rivals by winning the race.

Ingram, who represents Horwich RMI Harriers, had missed the trial race, and was reconciled to not running at all after trying to enter as an individual only to discover that entries had closed with the 600 limit having being met.

The race is billed as “one of Europe’s toughest endurance challenges,” being 10 miles from the edge of Lake Padarn at Llanberis to the highest summit in Wales and back.

Ingram is currently in a rich seam of form, having been a counter in Great Britain’s gold medal winning team at the European Mountain running Champ-ionships a fortnight earlier, and she was quickly leading the women’s classification being 36th to the summit in a mixed field of nearly 500.

She was twice as fast on the descent where she was 15th fastest to bring her home 29th outright in 1:20:42.

With trial winner Olivia Walwyn second and Jo Waites third, England added team gold.

Andi Jones from Salford, last seen finishing second in the Celebrate Blackburn 5K Elite Town Centre Race was the men’s winner in 1:06:02.

The climb from Llanberis to the summit of Snowdon will be used on August 17 as the trial for the World Trophy race – which will be held in Switzerland on September 13.

The race this year will be uphill only and running Snowdon would be excellent preparation, so the call up was very fortuitous, and a nice surprise on her 23rd birthday.