Matt O'Keefe

Growing up I played a wide variety of sports but I was never technically gifted, just fast. At that time I wanted to be like Michael Johnson running 200m on the track rather than Joss Naylor on the hills. I regularly ran in the Welsh Schools cross country (XC) Championship and Race the Train, the big local race, but running was never my primary sport. My first experience of fell running was marshalling with my Dad at a race in the Dyfi forest above Corris, watching the runners appear and then disappear back into the forest left a lasting impression.

I didn’t do much running in my early twenties but I started again racing my brother in the early days of Cardiff parkrun. I ran a few road races but running in the mountains (mainly down the mountains!) was considerably more fun. After a few trail races and mountain ultras a friend convinced me to do Waun Fach, my first proper fell race. I absolutely loved it and joined Mynyddwyr de Cymru (MDC) shortly after. Since then I’ve been regular at South Wales fell races with the occasional trip north thrown in.

I joined the WFRA Committee to help with the South Wales Series but it quickly became obvious that my skills in web development were needed more by the Committee. I’m now responsible for updates to the website functionality alongside the results database with scores for the WFRA series.