Dead Runners society race report
NW Sunday XC league, Walton Park, Liverpool - sunday 21st
February 1999.
Another
birthday and another trip home to run my annual XC race. Some BIG NEWS in the
post about my scientific career.
Morning all
Tony here posting for the Tiger team with some Big News! I have been offered a postdoc position in France which I have accepted. Some paperwork things have to be sorted out at the French end but around the end of May I'll be off to Montpellier in the south of France for 6 months to do some solid state chemistry. I'm excited and terrified about the trip, it should be an interesting 6 months and a summer by the Med can't be all bad. However it's going to be bad to leave the beautiful Shelley behind although she's hoping to come over and visit some time. France isn't the other side of the world from here and I'm sure I can get back to Angleterre every now and then. It's going to be a good opportunity for any future scientific career I might have to have some overseas experience. I've done a little bit of work in France already during my PhD studies and I know the odd word or two of French. Are there any deads in France, the only one I know is Stuart Tait (hope you had a happy birthday).
Last night we returned from a weekend in Warrington where we went to visit Tony's family to celebrate his birthday. Our trip up north coincided with a race in the NW Sunday XC league so sunday morning off we went to Walton Park in Liverpool to run for Spectrum Striders. This league race was one that Tony had run before and he remembered it as a nice flat fast course. We met some friends from Spectrum Striders and it was great to see our old friend and eurodead Mike Hoyland and his fiancee Nikki who both run for our deadly/friendly rivals Warrington Road Runners. On with the spikes and time to warm up, the course now had something described as a hill, it had a sign on it saying "The Hill" just in case you didn't notice it. It wasn't much, just a mud bank, 10 strides and you were up onto the top of the bank. Then back to the car to peel off lots of layers then ran to the start in our racing gear. Then we all waited for ages to get going, I noticed that Mike had put on a bit of weight since I had last seen him, just like I had :-( Hey Mike remember Sale 10 in August 1992 when I ran 61 minutes and you were just behind, will we ever see those times again?
Tony's race report. Finally we were off, started reasonably easily and after clambering over the hill I started to work my way through. After 1/2 mile I was in a bunch with some clubmates, I passed Alistair and Geoff, now for Richard but he wouldn't come back. After a mile I could see my old friend and training partner Bernard just ahead, I thought "I'm either having a really good run here or somethings about to go wrong". Soon after that I discovered it was the latter :-( By 1 1/2 miles runners were starting to come back past me. I could see Mike ahead but he didn't look catchable :-( Just before halfway I was passed by Karon, another old friend and clubmate, one of the best ladies in Spectrum Striders. Halfway in 15.32, feeling rather tired by now, especially into the strong wind. Kept pushing hard but Karon was drifting away, over the hill again and then into the wind. I managed to pass one of my clubmates here although he had stopped to tie a shoelace, hey they all count! One mile to go and I lost a couple more places, I was slowly catching the 5th placed lady by now. Back to the start and now to sprint in along the finish straight and I nearly fell over the mud was so deep :-( I managed to get over to some firmer ground and passed the 5th lady and ran in harder to the end. 33.17 for the approx. 4.75 mile course. Tired and wet and muddy on finishing, left knee was rather sore. I was 93rd man to finish, Mike was 74th. In the corresponding race for my birthday weekend last year I was 66th, oh boy have I lost a lot of fitness :-( I was running on memory today, the memory of how I used to run when I was fit and it caught up with me after a mile! You can get away with a lot less fitness on the road than over the country as its much easier to get into a rhythm on the road. Still it was nice to see my old running friends again.
Here's Shelley's race report. Well, I'd been feeling like I was getting back my fitness, but I still have a ways to go. I wasn't really up for a serious race attempt, but since Tony was doing it anyway I did it in place of my usual tempo runs and for the chance to see what it was like to run a cross country in spikes. As you have already heard from Tony, spikes were definitely necessary for this race. When I first tried out the spikes on the mud I was surprised to find that I couldn't even feel that they were they because they sunk in so far. Unfortunately, though, some time in the middle of the race possibly out of nervousness about them I thought I felt one of them come through my shoe. So I stopped and sat down to investigate the matter. It turned out to be nothing or at least I couldn't figure out what it was and whatever it was went away, so I continued on with the race and gradually tried to work my way back to my previous place. I passed several people, but never made it all the way back. I finished 19th out of somewhere around 40 women in a time of about 38 minutes. Not bad I suppose under the conditions, but it was a bit disappointing to find out later that if I hadn't stopped I probably would have been one of the scorers for our club. Oh, well, next time. Both of our pairs of shoes are now drying. Tony was a dear last night and threw them in the sink and with lots of water and patience cleaned half of the liverpool real estate off of them.
Shelley Walsh and Tony Bell
Milton
Cambridgshire England
Tiger@shells.demon.co.uk
Shelley Walsh Shelley@shells.demon.co.uk
http://www.shells.demon.co.uk/index.html
Tony
Bell Tony@shells.demon.co.uk
http://www.shells.demon.co.uk/tonyweb.html
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