Dead Runners society  race report 
 

Wrexham 10km, Wales - Saturday 8th July 1995

After some short fast races on top of the Boston marathon I got badly injured. Eurodead superstar Davi Thom from Glasgow was going to be in N.Wales on holiday and so we were all talking of an anglo/scottish encounter on the eurodead list. The upshot of all this was a race in blazing heat from a cornflake factory!

Evenin all

Here I am at work with a race report hot off the press from the great anglo/scottish/welsh drs encounter at the Wrexham 10km this afternoon.

I had to come into work this morning :-( But at least I got paid :-) After getting the synchrotron user going I drove back into Warrington to pick up Barry the nondead kiwi before heading off down the motorway towards Wales. Weather was overcast in england but the sun came out when we hit Wales, it was going to be a hot one :-(

We found the race venue on the Wrexham Industrial Estate easily enough and parked at a cornflake factory. We had arrived in plenty of time, there was a veterans race to go before our race. Soon met up with Jon Hind and then met Paul Henney and Davi Thom from the Scottish team, Davi looked like a real runner. Robin Tasker and finally Mike Hoyland turned up, we sat inside in the air conditioned works canteen before it was time to get ready to run. Davi and Paul went off to warm up and to discuss Scottish team tactics, we english didn't bother warming up, it was not a day for racing fast. We all lined up, Davi went to the front and I started at the back with Jon, Ron Hill was here and he lined up at the back. The race starter said BANG and off we set.

Ron soon got away, I ran near the back with Jon to 1km (4.56) before speeding up slightly and starting to work my way through. I didn't want to try and run fast due to my sore leg and severe unfitness. 2km (9.34) 3km (14.10) as I slowly passed runners, by now there were some runners walking. Missed the 4km mark but got to halfway and the drinks stop in 23.00, I thought sub 46 was on with my slow start, I felt refreshed by the drinks as I started lap 2. Not too many runners around now, got to 6km in 28.22! I hadn't slowed that much surely, it was starting to hurt a bit more but I struggled on, running with the wind behind was not good in this heat 7km (33.10) and there was a big gap to the
next group. By 8k (37.50) felt a bit tired but at least the wind was cooling us a bit as we ran into it, I finally caught the bunch just after 8k. 9km in 42.30 and then I picked up the pace slightly and passed a couple more runners. At 9.5km one runner was weaving all over the road, he was from Wrexham AC (host club) and some of his clubmates who were race officials pulled him off the road and into a car, it was not a day for running fast in this heat. Eventually finished in 46.51, fairly tired and leg a bit sore but not too distressed.

Met up with the other DRUnKs and waited for Jon to come in, Jon won a pair of socks as a spot prize before we got changed and then drove off into the Welsh countryside to find a pub. We eventually had to cross the border into england before we found one open! We had a drink and a chat and some photos were taken before we all went our seperate ways. A great encounter although no-one had a good time in the race. This is my 3rd slowest 10k ever, the two slowest were when I paced slower friends/clubmates round.

results

David Thom (Cambuslang Harriers and Scotland)         34.55 10th place
Barry Searle (Daresbury Accelerators and New Zealand) 40.06 (non dead)
Mike Hoyland (Warrington RR and England)              40.58
Robin Tasker (Daresbury Accelerators and England)     41.19
Paul Henney (Derby and County AC and Scotland)        41.50
Tony Bell (Spectrum Striders RC and England)          46.51
Jon Hind (North Herts RR and England)                 59.06

carpe encounters

tony...

-- 
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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