Dead Runners society race report
"Mota-vation" race number 2, Bletchingdon,
4 miles 462 yards - thursday 1st June 2000.
Here's the report on the second of the
Oxford midweek race series.
Evenin all
Tony here in merrie englande feeling rather
tired after his second race in 2 days. Yesterdays race was really easy as I was
just spectating as the beautiful Shelley was running in the ladies "race for
life" 5km in Battersea Park, London. TBS just missed her pb by 5s, she did 22.47
and was about 75th out of 7000. Amazingly enough for a no prize money and raise
lots of money for charity race Sonia O'Sullivan turned up and won it! She jogged
round in about 17.27 and looked incredibly easy finishing the race. The contrast
in running style between a world class athlete and the mere good club runners
finishing behind Sonia was amazing. Admittedly Sonia was running nearly a minute
a mile slower than she would on the track for 5km and was out for a steady run
but she was floating along as she ran. The young lady in 2nd place about 30s
behind Sonia looked to be working incredibly hard as she finished.
Tonight it was my turn to race so off I went
with eurodead Bob Wells and 2 other runners from Mansfield Road Runners
(university staff running club) to Bletchingdon, a little village just north of
Oxford. This was the 2nd in the series of 4 mile races run throughout the summer
around here. Entered the race and did about 10 minutes jogging pre-race to check
out the last 1/2 mile of the race. Lined up and off we went.
After last months race when I went off too
slowly I was determined to go off faster this time. Off through the village and
as the field gradually thinned out I started to work my way through, soon we
were on a long downhill. After 1/2 mile I passed MRR V60 superstar Everard, he
just beat me in the last race so I wanted revenge. First mile reached in 6.12,
end of the downhill and time to go uphill. Still working my way through and
feeling OK in spite of the uphill. Next mile and a half rolling up and down, 2
miles in 12.44/6.32, feeling tired but still moving well. At about 2.75 miles we
went round a bend and could see the last uphill of the race, pushed on harder
but around 3 miles (19.37/6.53) things started to get a lot harder and runners
started to come past including Everard :-( I tried to hang on but by the top of
the hill the wheels had fallen off and they all zoomed away. Struggled in from
here back to the village, 4 miles in 26.47/7.10, 462 yards to go. Ran in the
best that I could but lost a few more places. Crossed the line in 28.34. Tired
on finishing but felt worse from the disappointment that I couldn't keep it
going for the last mile. One hill too many, local knowledge counted for a lot in
this race I think! Jogged 5 minutes very slowly to cool down after the race.
Oh well I got a good 5km out of that and was
able to run on a nice summers evening on some nice country lanes. Next month's
race in this series is supposed to be flatter so I will have another go.
time for bed
Dr Tony Bell Tony@shells.demon.co.uk tony.bell@chemistry.oxford.ac.uk Weekends - Milton, Cambridgeshire. Midweek, Dept of Inorganic Chemistry, Oxford University. <http://www.shells.demon.co.uk/tonyweb.html> <http://albums.photopoint.com/j/AlbumList?u=227580>
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