Brecon Fans Races

Having successfully organised the Fan y Big Horseshoe Race five times since 2017, Emma Bayliss has had to pass on the baton for 2023. And since we've always been involved behind the scenes, Naomi and I have stepped in for this year, and we'll see how it goes. It's not as much work as it used to be, now we're using Fabian 4 for entries and timing, but there's still plenty to do, so we're very open to offers for future years!

Of course the Brecon Fans website should run under https encryption, because people can log in and pre-enter! But encryption for home/hobby websites has always been a problem as it has required significant payments and/or complicated configuration. I should say.. it's not as if we have ever been putting people at risk, as payment for our race entries is taken by PayPal, which has its own security, but it did mean usernames and passwords for this site were travelling over the wire... read more

I noticed a few days ago that registering with a Google account was no longer working on this site. We use the Janrain social sign-in toolkit, and a little investigation showed this was all to do with the change from Google to Google+ accounts (some boring yada here). I think it works now, and we also enabled sign-in with Disqus and OpenID too (not that anyone knows their OpenID, but it's kinda geeky). read more

Woohoo, it's Chris Chambers of Eastleigh Running Club going for the Pen y Fan and Fan y Big double.

First the good news... the online entry system is now open for 2015. It could be that perfect Christmas gift for the one you love!? Now the bad news... we've increased prices by £1 for each race, so that we can pay the farmers for parking out of the entry fees we receive. OK not such bad news really, as we collected money for parking anyway at Fan y Big, so including it in the entry fee will save that particular hassle. Overall, because there are more runners than cars, we will collect a little ... read more

We’ve set the dates for 2013… 13th – 14th July. The start time for Pen y Fan will be an hour later, at 12 noon, to give travellers more time to arrive.

And I’ve tweaked the web site to make the text bigger. All suggestions welcome for further changes.

Online entry is now open for 2013!

It’s race morning, gentle drizzle, low cloud, but no wind. Here’s the view of Pen y Fan from our front garden… If you are coming to the Pen y Fan Race today (and why wouldn't you?!) please be aware of the following... Parking Due to the recent rains, the field on the right of the track is out of bounds for parking, at the farmer's request. Combined with the fact that we are a championship race this year, this means there will be some pressure on parking space. Please share transport where ... read more

As most fellrunners will know, Brian Belfield of Staffs Moorlands died in the Buttermere Sailbeck race on 29th April. He was found at 9:45 the next morning, off the course on steep ground, and although I've not heard officially, my guess is he died of hypothermia as conditions were horrible in the night. The alarm was only raised after 8pm, meaning there was little chance of finding him in failing light with a 10 mile route to cover. The organisers had thought that all runners were home and... read more

Demonstrating my mastery of displacement activity, I've created a Facebook page for the Brecon Fans Race Weekend http://www.facebook.com/BreconFansRaceWeekend

and embedded a panel for it into the home page of this site. I expect a turnout of at least 5000 after this sophisticated marketing campaign.

Please all "like" it a lot, then go for a run in the hills...

We’re please to say that John Chidlow will be helping with the time-keeping this year. John has seen (and timed) it all, officiating at over 50 races every year, and he has at least two fancy stopwatches. He will be a welcome addition to the finish line team, which normally consists of me + one or two of the kids trying to take times and read numbers as people hurtle down the straight.

Maybe one year I’ll be able to run the race…