Dead Runners society race report
Keyworth Turkey Trot half-marathon - Sunday 10th December 1995
After running with the Cambridge "kiddies"
during my first university term I ran the Turkey Trot half-marathon and met some
dead runners on my way home for what turned out to be a memorable (for the wrong
reasons) Xmas holiday at home in Warrington.
Morning all
Tony here back in his old office at Daresbury :-) I'm back here for a synchrotron radiation course for 3 days and I'm staying in Warrington after this for Xmas. I had an interesting journey up here and met a few strange people.
Early yesterday morning fellow Cambridgeshire dead Shelley
Walsh picked me up from the college and we headed north
from foggy Cambridge for the eurodead encounter at the
Keyworth Turkey Trot half marathon in nottinghamshire. We
arrived 45 mins before the started and parked at the British Geological Survey, work place of Paul (PJ) Henney. Mike
Hoyland turned up just as we arrived and we got on the
minibus which took us the
half mile or so to the start.
Met up with PJ at the race HQ, he wasn't running as he had
a cold. Went inside to get changed for the race and met up with Val Russell and Pete Williams. I decided to be a wimp and wear
an thermal long sleeved top under my bootleg DRS vest as it
was very cold, still a bit of ice around in places :-( Met
up with Charlie Cook on the start line, PJ took some
pictures and another runner asked if we were famous :-)
The horn blew and off we went, Charlie and Mike zoomed off I
but I didn't want to go off too fast, fairly hard start but
didn't try to race anyone for the first couple of mile
(downhill). At 2.5 miles there was a long 2-part hill for a
mile, passed a few up the hill but I felt rather tired at the top, not been able to run up too many long hills in Cambridge! Got to 5 miles
in 33.52 and I started to drift off the back of my pack so
I decided to try and
speed up, I thought I would have
felt a bit stupid going along at this pace for the rest of
the race as finishing with loads left in the tank. Felt a bit more tired from now as we carried on round the undulating country
lanes. Passing runners was tricky as the roads were a bit
slippery in places due to all the ice and frost and there
was only one good racing line in places. I ran with a very
strange runner between 7-9 miles, he had an even shorter stride length and lower leg lift than me! At 9.5 miles I decided to
push on harder to the end as I knew the infamous "hills of
death" that PJ kept going on about were coming. 10 miles in
1h07.40 and into some rolling hills, the climbs weren't too
bad but there was a long rather painful descent in there.
PJ was there with his camera at the top of the HOD at 11 miles, I hope
I didn't look too awful! Rather tired in from here, still going
slightly uphill into Keyworth, at 12 miles the sign said
"all downhill from here". Well it was downhill to the BGS
but there was a nasty climb up from there to the finish. At
about 12.5 miles I thought I could see Charlie ahead, as he
went round a bend I saw his face, it was him! I pushed on harder up the hill and he was coming back to me, the 13 mile marker had a
sign
saying "sprint for the line" so I did and I was
reeling Charlie in, there was a sharp turn off the road to
the finish straight and Charlie got there just before I did
and I had to go the long way round. We crossed the line
together in 1h29.10 although they pushed Charlie ahead of me in the finish funnel.
Tired on finishing, that wasn't too bad. I had to run a lot harder than that on an easier course to run 1h30.30 at Lake Vyrnwy in september so I have got fitter in my time in Cambridge, maybe I can run 1h25 at Helsby next month? Waited for the others to come in, Mike had run 1h25, Pete did 1h37, Val 1h53. Shelley sensibly decided to drop out after 5.5 miles and got a lift back as she didn't want to aggravate her injury.
Off to the pub which was at the 4 mile marker in the race for chat and drinks and picture. Met up with Bob Thurstans who Shelley and Pete had seen at the race, he ran 1h31 in the race. Eventually it was time to go and Mike very kindly drove me back to Warrington. A really good encounter, nice to meet Charlie and Bob for the first time, I'll get you next time Charlie :-)
After the race in the pub we discussed a possible "eurodead" conference in Cambridge. Maybe if we can find a suitable weekend race in Cambridge in the summer vacation we can have a weekend encounter, any scottish/irish/ continental/transatlantic/martian/etc deads could stay in student accommodation for the weekend. Just a thought.
note to big list deads, I'm in NOMAIL mode at the moment so you'll have to send me private email, I can still read my Cambridge mail from here.
bye
tony.....
tony bell
ageing chemistry student and
marathoner
department of chemistry
university of cambridge
amtb2@cam.ac.uk
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