Dead Runners society race report
Kirkham 10km, Lancashire - saturday 2nd september 1995
A few weeks before my big
move to Cambridge I went back to my past for one last run in the Kirkham
10km.
Morning
all
Well autumn is on its way back, my car windscreen was covered in condensation this morning and Barry Norman is back on the box tonight, definitely time to get the warm clothes on and turn on the fire.
After I graduated from University (for the first time :-)) in 1984 I finally got a job at the Springfields Nuclear labs near Preston in 1985. I joined the site running club then (called Springfields AC), every year the club organised a race in the nearby town of Kirkham (between Preston and Blackpool) and as a good club member I ran the race in 1985 and I ran the race every year I worked at Springfields except 1989 when as I was running a marathon the day after so I helped out as a race official. In 1990 I left Springfields for Daresbury but I still kept in contact with my old Preston area running friends by coming back every September to run the Kirkham 10km.
On saturday I went up the M6 one last time to run Kirkham, Springfields AC now longer exists but a lot of the ex-SAC runners have gone over to North Fylde AC and the race is now a NFAC promotion although the same people are involved as in the past. Said hello to all my old friends, funny how old everyone else has got :-) There are a lot more veteran runners than there used to be :-( I picked up my number and then went to warm up, I put on my racing gear and my Boston marathon t-shirt and jogged out to just before the 1 mile marker stopping to have my traditional glare at the nasty hill we have to run up at the end. About 1.75 miles warm up, felt a bit easier, then it was time to take off the Boston shirt and to line up near the back.
BANG and off we went, its a downhill start
and I had to hold back, its very easy to
get dragged off very fast at the start in this race and then blow up
after a mile. Off onto the main road, up a
little hill then there is a long downhill
to 1 mile, gradually working my way through but not *racing* yet. 1 mile in 6.50, off the main road and onto the
undulating country lanes loop, picked up
pace a little and started to race the others around me. Passed a few runners to 2 miles (13.23) although I was
already finding it hard work, to 3 miles
(20.05) I had a lady runner breathing down my neck but I
finally got rid of her around half way, we were pretty
well spread out by now and I was having
to be careful not to push too hard as I could feel a stitch coming on. At 4 miles (26.57) I caught and passed an
ex-clubmate, now we were running into a
strong headwind, and it was starting to hurt. My left leg was feeling sore by 4.5 miles, still not long to go, still
managed to pass a couple of runners to 5
miles (33.55). I knew the big hill awaited us, got past another runner at 5.5 miles then up the hill, not too long but
rather steep and in the wrong place in
the race, I struggled up the best I could, my lack of fitness means
that my usual hill climbing strength has gone for a while :-( Over the
top and then down hill to the finish, another
ex-clubmate is coming back to me, 6 miles
(40.49) and into the finish straight and I've got loads left (as usual), sprinted in the best I could but I could quite
catch my ex-clubmate. 42.08 for 10km, I
would have liked 41.xx but it was windy out there. Pretty tired on finishing and legs a bit sore, did 3/4 miles
slow as a cool-down jog to take the weeks
mileage to 50 for the first time (apart from the Tameside week) since before Boston! Legs felt a bit easier for
the jog, on with some clean clothes and
time to make the post-race excuses :-)
In retrospect I was pretty pleased with my run, my best race since March although I've run 3 minutes faster than this on this course and I'm still a long way from being properly fit. I finished 121/173, not too bad as there were some pretty classy runners at the front, Mark Croasdale, a former member of the winter olympic biathlon team won in 30.3x.
Nice to see the old crowd one last time, I'm not sure if I'll be running Kirkham again with my move to the southern flatlands. Hopefully for the corresponding weekend in 1996 I'll be in Cleveland for DRSWCIV!
10 miles slow in the rain yesterday morning, legs pretty tired after saturday but I toughed it out.
15 working days to go at Daresbury.
--
tony bell
A.M.T.Bell@dl.ac.uk
crystallographer
and marathon runner (but not necessarily in that order :-))
council for the central laboratory of the research
councils
daresbury laboratory,
daresbury, warrington, cheshire, UK. WA4 4AD.
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