Dead Runners society race
report
Eastern Vets AC road relays, Hemingford Grey -
Sunday 2nd May 2004.
A brief
return to running for this race. In 2003 I made my debut in veterans
competition in these relays, 6 days after the Boston marathon. I felt a bit
more comfortable running this year!
hello folks
Today the
beautiful Shelley and I competed for Bedford and County AC in the Eastern
Veterans AC road relays. Off we went down the A14 to the village of Hemingford
Grey near St. Ives, we arrived in good time and met up with our Bedford team
mates. I was going to be in a team of my own this team, Bedford had 9 M40 men
this time, with 4 men per team I was the odd one out, I was going to lead off
for the incomplete C team. Only 3 ladies had turned up for Bedford, Shelley got
the anchor leg for the ladies team.
I jogged out
to the start, about 1.25 miles from race HQ, felt a bit stiff and tired. This
was to be my first running race since February, everything since then had been
racewalking. We started on a country lane outside the village, the relay leg
was about 2 miles. We all lined up and off we went, didn't try to go off too
hard. As the pace settled down I started to work my way through, I passed one
of the Bedford M60 runners, the 2nd placed lady and one of my former clubmates
from Huntingdonshire AC. As we entered the village of Hemingford Abbots I was
running with a runner from Bedford Harriers (deadly rivals) and closing on one
of my old training partners from Cambridge and Coleridge AC. Around halfway I
got past Marcus from C and C, the Bedford Harrier got away. Through the village
on roads we used to train on when I ran with Huntingdonshire AC, pushing quite
hard to get away from Marcus, feeling very tired by now. Out of the village,
after this only one more turn before the finish but the last bend took ages to
come. Marcus got briefly back ahead but I got away again, finally round the
last bend. Very hard in from then as I knew Marcus had a killer sprint finish
but I held him off.
Very tired
at the end, not a bad run, 12.41 for 2 miles. Last year I did 13.16 in this
race although it was 6 days after the Boston marathon and I was a little bit
sore. When I got my breath back I did a cool down jog, I went round the lap the
opposite way to the racers so I could cheer people on. Just after I left the
village I saw Shelley zooming along running leg 3 for the Bedford ladies team,
she was a long way behind the other ladies teams though as we had a 65 year old
lady on leg 2. Just behind Shelley I could see the M40 leaders on leg 4, in the
lead was Mansfield Harriers but closing rapidly was our star veteran runner
Jim. Jim won the M40 10000m at last years British vets track championships, it
looked good for a Bedford win :-)
Back to the
finish and sure enough Jim soon zoomed in for a comfortable win in the M40 race
:-) I understand that Bedford won the M50 and M60 races as well. Shelley
brought the Bedford ladies home in 5th with a time of 14.28, an almost completely
solo run for her. After it was all
over I jogged back to race HQ, in total I got about 6.5 miles in today.
a nice
morning out for a run in the country in the early spring sunshine.
bye
tony....
--
Tony Bell - tony.bell2@ntlworld.com
Midweek - Warrington, Cheshire.
Weekends - Milton, Cambridge.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tony.bell2/tonyhome.html
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