Dead Runners society race report
10th Daresbury Dash 2 mile race - friday
29th June 2001.
A trip up north for a sentimental
journey to my past, this was the first of 2 short races over the weekend.
Good morning
Tony here in very warm and sunny England, you
wouldn't think it was Wimbledon fortnight with all the sunshine around!
Back in the early 90s I used to work at
Daresbury Laboratory up north near my home town of Warrington. I helped to found
"Daresbury Accelerators Running Club" and every year since 1992 there has been a
2 mile multiterrain race for lab employees called the "Daresbury Dash". I
stopped working at Daresbury in 1995 but I have been a frequent visitor to the
lab since then to do experiments and I have kept in contact with my old
Daresbury running friends. This year the 10th Dash took place and race organiser
Robin Tasker (eurodead lurker) invited some of the former Daresbury runners back
to run. So on Thursday I drove back home for a flying visit to my family and to
run the race on Friday.
Nice to see the old lab again and my running
friends, I signed up for the Dash and did a mile of jogging to warm up. The Dash
was the 5th race in the "Tour of Daresbury", 5 races in 5 days, the 11 survivors
of the Tour were joined by 12 others to make up the Dash field of 23.
We all lined up, the lab director said go and
off we went. The Tour leader went straight into the lead, I was just off the
back off the 2nd place pack as we went round the lab perimeter road. Just before
leaving the lab I went from 7th to 6th but the rest of the pack were getting
away. Out of the lab and along the canal towpath, working hard by now but the
pack was pulling ahead. I got to the nominal halfway in just over 6 minutes and
then the fun started. Off the towpath, over the bridge and into a field before
the climb up through "The Firs", some woodland above the lab. In days of old I
used to run hard up this steep hill
but I just about managed to jog to the top. Easy pace through the woods
before going back down to the road. 7th place had nearly caught me on the
descent through the woods but I had plenty left for the descent to the lab on the road. Hard pace to the
end and I crossed the line comfortably in 6th in 13.20. Pretty tired on
finishing, a bit disappointed with my time, I have run over a minute faster than
that on this course but there aren't too many hills like that where I live
now!
After the presentation I did 1/2 mile cool
down before getting some lunch and then heading back down the motorway to the
beautiful Shelley in the flatlands of Cambridge. Thanks to Robin for organising
things so well, unfortunately he was injured and couldn't run himself :-(((
Two days later….
East Anglian Track League, Chelmsford
3000m race - sunday 1st July 2001.
Yesterday we went off to Chelmsford to run
for Cambridge and Coleridge AC on the track in the East Anglian League. More
good racing for Shelley with yet another pb, I will let her tell her tale in her
own post. I was down to do the 3000m, I did just under 2 miles of jogging to
warm up and then 800m jogging and striding on the track in my spikes before we
lined up. I ran 2 3000m races in April in 11.27 and 11.28, since then I have
been doing some track training every Tuesday with the club. I was hoping to go
faster in this race, it was warm and humid but there wasn't much wind so
conditions weren't too bad. The plan for this race was to go out hard, I usually
don't go out hard enough in short races and finish with too much left.
Bang and off we went, I was determined to go
out hard so I tried to hang on to the back of the pack. This lasted a lap which
I did in 80s (ooops) before I got dropped. 2nd lap took 90s and then it was
about 96-97s per lap after that as the lactic acid got its revenge on me for my
first lap. I ended up struggling round in 11.43, a pretty dreadful run :-( I
ended up 13th/14 and scored the point for our club, there was one rather fat
runner behind me who I was always going to beat and the 12th runner was a minute
ahead of me. Whatever tactics I was going to employ wouldn't have changed my
position but I was angry with myself for throwing away the chance of a decent
time. Oh well, next time I will pace it better. 1 slow mile post race to
recover, I did most of this run with Shelley which was very nice.
ORN 8 slow miles this morning, my legs were
rather tired from yesterday. Back to the track tomorrow night.
bye tony....
Dr Tony Bell, Milton, Cambridgeshire,
England. Tony@shells.demon.co.uk http://www.shells.demon.co.uk/tonyweb.html
previous race report next race report