Dead Runners society race report
Eastern Veterans track & field league, Peterborough - Wednesday 8th May 2003.
After Boston I was ill again, more of the lurgi that
affected my Boston training earlier this year. Unlike last time I decided to
make sure I was feeling better before returning to work so I had a few days in
Cambridge to recover. One good thing that came out of this was a chance to
racewalk for Bedford in the EVAC league.
Evenin all
Tony here with news of his first ever veterans(masters) track meeting in the
UK last night. After watching my beautiful wife Shelley competing in these
events over the last few years I am now old enough to take part myself,
whoopee :-)
Last night was the first night of the Eastern vets track league in
Peterborough. I hadn't planned on competing but at the end of last week I
had come down with a bad cold and I struggled back to Cambridge on Friday to
recover. By yesterday the cold had (almost) gone so I decided to head back
up north to work. Whilst I was around in the south I decided to help out
Shelley and Bedford and County AC by taking part in the 2000m racewalk.
So off we went up to Peterborough, we had to go in separate cars as I was
going to carry on up north after the meeting. We arrived in plenty of time.
The spirit of the Eastern Vets league is to "turn up and have a go",
some
pretty good athletes usually win the events but athletes of all standards
take part to score points for their clubs.
The first events were the hurdle races, Shelley competed against one other
lady in the W45 80m hurdles and came 2nd, 5 points for Bedford. Next was
Shelley's main event of the evening, the 1500m. All of the ladies ran
together, some young whippersnappers got ahead of Shelley at the start but
Shelley was soon in the lead in her age group, she got to 800m in about 3.00
and was catching up some youngsters at the end as she finished in 5.38,
first W45, 6 points. Shelley was very pleased with her time as it was a new
W45 club record for Bedford breaking the record of Lesley Dawe. Lesley's
daughter Liz Yelling is the second best 10000m runner in the country (Liz
is also the 2nd best 10000m runner in the club after Paula!)
Then it was my turn to go for a walk, every one of these vets track meetings
has a racewalk of some description, tonight it was 2000m. The men and ladies
competed together, 6 men and 6 ladies lined up including our friend and
physio Rod. Rod is a good vets middle distance runner but is unfortunately
injured so he is currently slumming it by racewalking. Off we went, Rod
zoomed into the lead followed by one of his Peterborough clubmates, I was
soon in 4th just behind a walker from Milton Keynes. Fairly rapidly closed
down on Rod's teammate (who wouldn't have lasted long if any racewalk
judges had been around) but MK was slowly pulling ahead. 400m in 2.17,
pretty fast for walking, I was trying my hardest but MK was not coming back
and was slowly catching Rod. I was now secure in 3rd, 800m in 4.43, working
hard now and starting to get the leg soreness that comes with racewalking
fast. 1000m in 5.57, well inside my existing very soft 1000m pb of 7.37.
1200m in 7.11 and I was starting to close on the backmarkers, 1600m in 9.38.
First to be lapped was my Bedford clubmate Jim, Jim is a sprinter and was
strolling round to get some points. I had got to 1700m before I heard the
bell ring again so I was well clear. Feeling tired by now but I wanted to
break 12, coming down the home straight I had to move out to lap 3 ladies
but I finished in 11.58.5. 3rd male and 2nd M40, 5 points.
Pretty tired on finishing, I had never walked that fast before, sub 10
minute miling pace :-) Encouraging for future racewalk competitions, my only
other racewalks have been 5 milers at 11 minute pace.
We also managed a DRS encounter with Milton Keynes dead Val Russell who we had
last seen at the Eastern vets XC in February. Val ran in the 400m and
then ran in the 200-200-400-800 relay. Val ran one of the 200 legs for MK in
a relay against Bedford and helped MK get a big lead. Shelley ran the 800
leg for Bedford and almost closed down the big gap but needed another 200m
to catch up, another good run for Shelley, 5 points.
A fun evening of competition and socialising, Bedford won the ladies match
and MK won the men's match.
Then I drove 140 miles back to Warrington, back to work today :-(
bye
tony....
Tony Bell
Midweek.
Warrington, Cheshire.
Weekends.
Milton, Cambridge.
tony.bell2@ntlworld.com
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tony.bell2/tonyhome.html
previous race report next race report