Dead Runners society race report
Icknield XC league race 1, West Stow - sunday 7th October
2001.
I trained hard after Grunty Fen, I had
also just got myself a new job at Manchester University starting in the new
year. I wasn't sure how this would affect my training for a spring marathon so I
decided to enter the Abingdon marathon after all. Two weeks before the marathon
I did the first XC race of the year.
Evenin all
Tony here in England where
its awful out there, cold, wet and blowing a gale :-(
Today the beautiful
Shelley and I started another winter of racing over the country by racing in the
Icknield XC League for our club, Cambridge and Coleridge AC.
Before we
set off for the race I set the video recorder going to tape the live BBC
coverage of the world half marathon championships in Britsol. Ironically the
week it was announced that they are not going to build the new stadium in London
for the 2005 world athletics championships the IAAF top brass were over in the
UK to see how well the British can hold a championships. The BBC showed the end
of the men's race and I saw Haile G win it fairly comfortably from a top class
field.
Then we got into the car and drove off to West Stow in Suffolk for
the first XC of the season, it was raining on the way there but the sun came out
when we arrived. A nice looking course mostly on forest trails, I did a mile of
jogging 2 x out and back from the car to the start. Then on with the spikes for
another mile or so to warm up on the course as the youngsters were
racing.
Then on with the race clothes and time to line up for the
senior/vet mens race. A good turn out for Cambridge and Coleridge, we had 14
runners, mostly vets. We had two father-son combinations running in this race,
both fathers and sons were vets!
Bang and off we went, didn't go off too
hard, a fairly narrow course to start. After 1/2 mile the course got wider and I
picked up the pace and started to work my way through. I was running alongside
one of my clubmates and 50-100m ahead was a pack containing most of my regular
training partners from the club. After a mile my clubmate got ahead and I
started to go backwards, I lost another 4 or 5 places in the next mile and that
was about it for as a race, just a matter of slogging round. There was one
runner ahead of me who was slowly coming back to me but after halfway (22.46 -
5km) I couldn't see him any more, he must have dropped out. Lap 2 was just a
matter of slogging round, I didn't see much of any runners ahead, I knew that
there was a runner about 100m behind so I couldn't stop and jog. I picked up the
pace in the last mile or so and as usual finished with a lot left.10km in 47.27,
43rd out of 47. Not a good run for me, even though it was a nice place to run it
was a disappointing comeback to XC after not running a single XC race last
season. Compared to the big fields I was used to running in up north when I was
younger 47 finishers is a pretty poor turnout.
Off with my spikes (what a
relief) and back on with road shoes and some more clothes. By now Shelley and
the junior/senior/vet ladies 5km (1 lap) had started, I jogged and walked out
along the course to watch the race and then jogged back to the finish as the
faster runners came in. Shelley did her 5km in 23.18 and was 17th out of about
35 finishers, a good race for her.
Still I have more important things to worry
about now than XC, 2 weeks to go to Abingdon marathon, a long run tomorrow then
time to ease off.
Back home in the afternoon to watch the video of the
ladies race in Bristol, a great race by Paula Radcliffe and a very popular home
win. She just jogged along with the leaders to halfway and then gradually
applied the pressure and they dropped off one by one. She won easily in 66.47,
just outside the world best on a cold windy day.
Amazing news from
Chicago, 2h18.47 for Ndereba!! You wait 16 years from Ingrid and Joanie's 2h21
races for a sub 2h20 and now you get 2 in a week!
bye tony....
Dr
Tony Bell
Milton, Cambridge,
England.
Tony@shells.demon.co.uk
http://www.shells.demon.co.uk/tonyweb.html
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