Dead Runners society race report
18th Birchwood 10km road race - sunday 19th August
2001.
A trip north back to my running past
and a chance to run a race I knew very well.
Evenin all
Tony here with a rather late
race report from sunday. The beautiful Shelley and I have started teaching again
this week and things have been rather busy at the start of a new
term.
Towards the end of last week as our term break came to an end we
had a few days away from home ending up my home town of Warrington where we
visited with my family. This trip was timed as last sunday my old home-town
running club, Spectrum Striders, hosted the Birchwood 10km road race for the
18th time. I have been a member of the striders for over 10 years and Shelley
has also been a member for the last 2 years but earlier this year we both
resigned our memberships as we now run for Cambridge and Coleridge AC.
On
the day of the big race all members of the striders are needed to help out with
marshalling, drinks stations and all of the other tasks involved in race
organisation. As we are now longer members we were free to run the race
ourselves, it is a very well organised race and worth supporting so we entered
the race for the opportunity to run a fast time and also to meet up with our old
running friends.
I didn't get much sleep the night before the race, I was
running the race again and again in my mind. I have trained on parts of this
course hundreds of times and I have also run this race when I was not a member
of the striders. We arrived in plenty of time and immediately started bumping
into old friends from Spectrum Striders and other local clubs. Conditions looked
OK, calm and cloudy. We did 10 minutes jogging to warm up before the race then
it was time to line up. Over 600 had entered the race so it was a bit crowded at
the start. I tried to line up reasonably close to the front.
I heard
someone say Go and off we went, it took me 5s to cross the start line and it was
a rather crowded run for the first couple of minutes, I didn't really get into
my stride until about 500m into the race. 1km reached in 4.29, a lot slower than
planned, I was hoping for at least 41 minutes today. Kept going hard and I was
still working my way through, 2nd km in 4.04, I was already working hard by now.
3rd km in 4.09, still passing runners and soon after that I overtook another
ex-strider who used to be a racing rival in days of old. Just before 4km (4th km
in 4.09) a bunch of runners came past me, I tried to go with them but didn't
hang on for long although I was still passing a few runners. I was working very
hard by now as I approached halfway (20.54, 4.03 for 5th km). There was a brief
rain shower which helped cool us down but not for long.
I was still
passing runners and I could see another old rival ahead, 6th km took 4.13, this
wasn't going to be a fast time :-( So far the course had been pretty flat and
fast but I knew that there were some bridges to cross in the last part of the
course. The 7km point (7th km 4.17) was at the top of a motorway bridge I used
to do hill reps on with the club, experience didn't make the climb any easier!
On the other side of the bridge I passed another old rival, in earlier days she
was one of the best lady runners in Liverpool. Now she is one of the best lady
veteran runners in Liverpool. In days of old this bridge was the only hill on
the course but course changes meant that there were 2 more motorway bridge
crossings to come. The 8km point (8th km in 4.18) was at the top of another
bridge, very tired indeed by now but not far to go. Over another bridge soon
afterwards, just before 9km I passed a runner from Warrington Road Runners, the
deadly/friendly rivals of Spectrum Striders and the club of my old eurodead pal
Mike Hoyland (where were you?). 9th km took 4.18, over a little footbridge and
there was the shopping centre where the race started and finished. As we ran in
on the road by the shopping centre an overweight looking runner came past, I
hung in there behind him and as we turned into the shopping centre car park for
the finish I was able to overtake him fairly easily.
Over the finish line
in 42.12, last km in 4.12. Not happy with my time, I never felt comfortable
during the race. Pretty tired at the end though, that was still hard work.
Through the finish funnel and got myself a drink then I waited for Shelley to
come in. I didn't have long to wait as Shelley had a much better run than I did.
Shelley finished in 46.56, only 28s slower than her pb. I was in 165th place,
Shelley was 288th out of 556 finishers.
After the race we helped our old
clubmates clear up the finish area and then went to watch the presentation.
After the presentation we hung around for the post-race food for all of the race
helpers and we had a chance to catch up with our old friends and tell our "war
stories" from the race. I was disappointed with my run, a better start would
have helped me and it was rather warm and humid for the race, a runner finishing
just ahead of Shelley collapsed in the finish funnel. The winning times (30.56
men, 35.05 women) over a minute outside the respective course records so maybe
it wasn't a day for fast running. Still it was nice to see some old running
friends and it was nice to be cheered on by the marshals as we ran
along.
After this race I am still not sure about running the Abingdon
marathon in October, I only want to run if I think I am fit enough to run a
reasonable time. I am running in a half marathon next month, hopefully I will
have a better run then.
bye tony....
Dr Tony Bell
Milton,
Cambridge,
England.
Tony@shells.demon.co.uk
http://www.shells.demon.co.uk/tonyweb.html
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