We are very happy to be working with Joe Faulkner and his team at NAV4 for the provision of our exclusive Mountain Running Essentials™ courses.

This course is has been specifically designed for mountain runners and mountain marathon competitors and is highly relevant to less experienced competitors wishing to take part in any of our three events; the Dragon’s Back Race™, Dark Mountains™ or the Great Lakeland 3Day™. It is also recommended for novice competitors at the Original Mountain Marathon, Lowe Alpine Mountain Marathon, Rab Mountain Marathon, Saunders Lakeland Mountain Marathon and many other similar events.

What makes the Mountain Running Essentials™ course different is that it has been designed by, and all the coaching and instruction will be delivered by, mountain runners.

Below is a table that summarises the results from the 2012 Dragon’s Back Race™. This is a little easier to interpret than the detailed SPORTident results, for example, we manually changed the rtd comments within the SPORTident results to show the checkpoints that competitors did not visit (m1-3 i.e. missing checkpoints 1 - 3) on any given day. If there is a rtd shown below it means that the competitor did not start the day or retired before reaching the first checkpoint.

Pro photographer, James Carnegie joined the Dragon's Back Race on Tuesday 4th September and captured some stunning images and put together this excellent short film. Many thanks to James for sharing this video with us.

By Shane Ohly

The evening before the race, 1992 winner Martin Stone had explained to all the competitors and marshals that participating in the Dragon's Back Race would be a life-changing experience for many of them. Indeed it was.

So it is nice and easy to find, below are all the films made by Trail Running Magazine during the Dragon's Back Race.

The first film is the main 'feature' and all the other films are great for giving an impression of the event.

Many thanks to Claire Maxted, editor of Trail Running Magazine, for these films.

Just as quick as we can upload them onto the website we will have all five of the Dragon's Back Race films available online here.

The second Dragon’s Back Race drew to a close at about 11pm on Friday night in the dark courtyard of Carreg Cennen Castle. The speeches had already been made and the prizes given out.but there was still one more trophy to be given, and that was to the last runner on the course, Wendy Dodds.

Wendy was the oldest competitor in the race (61) and one of 4 runners taking part who had also completed the first race 20 years ago. She was accompanied by some race staff over the later part of the course and the crowd who had walked up to the castle to see her finish began cheering when their headlights came into view in the woods on the final climb. Going at a good pace she passed through the crowd and began the final climb into the castle. With the finish line in sight she put on such a spurt up the hillside the supporting crowd couldn’t keep up with her!

Just for today Carreg Cennen castle has an extra tourist attraction to go with the ancient ruins and panoramic views for which it is famous. The Dragon’s Back race has moved in for the afternoon and among the earliest runners to arrive were the race winners Steve Birkinshaw and Helene Whitaker.

It is the final day of The Dragon’s Back Race, and the runners are now making their way across The Black Mountain towards Carreg Cennen Castle, renowned as one of the most impressive castle ruins in Wales (and of course as the finish of the Dragons Back Race).