It was 6am and freezing outside, not a soul was stirring, just the gentle rythmic noise of sleeping, snoring people. And then my alarm went off. Peace ruined. But, I’m not one to hit the snooze button so I forced myself out of bed, got my running gear on and went outside for a course check. It’s times like this that I question why I do these things…
Thankfully the work had already begun on the course the night before Wayne had gone out and marked up the course in the afternoon with the barrier tape and I had gone out and cut away a branch that had fallen across one of the paths. But the paranoid soul that I am, I still got up in the morning to make sure that none of the markings had been pulled down and no more trees had fallen during the night. Well, you never know! Thankfully, it was all ok so nothing much needed to be done, might have been a waste of time but better to be safe than sorry! Then it was a quick run home for some hot porridge and a hotter bath!
As the race start dawned ever closer, I got the car filled up with all the timing equipment, chips, bibs and maps and headed up the road to start getting set up. I’m always very grateful to our fantastic volunteers and a huge credit to them they turned up in this freezing cold weather to make sure the event went well. Not only that, they turned up nice and early and helped out getting the bibs handed out. After the timing system was set up and bibs were handed out, there was only one thing left to do… Make a cuppa! I’m never without my trusty flask particularly in this weather! Oh, and perhaps I best start the race too….
It was great to see a good turn out from our club members. A couple of which I’m in the process of coaching and it’s great to have this event to help them push themselves so we can get a benchmark. Iris Burnett, is currently doing her A-Level’s for PE and running is one of her options, she’s showing huge potential and placing very well in xcounty events and has qualified for the nationals! Amazing to think that she didn’t even like running to start 😂 It’s fair to say that I was expecting to see something fast from her in this round!
Anyway, we had 47 people signup for the event and 33 people turned up. I bet that this 14 pressed that snooze button, rolled over and went back to sleep 🤣 The race kicked off well with belting efforts from everyone! Sean Willis took first male (after a small detour at the start) & first overall and Iris took first female (even after stopping to tie her shoelaces!). But it’s not about who won, it’s great for everyone to get the best out of themselves and there was a fantastic effort from everyone that attended! If you would like to see the times go to the results page here. Not just focusing on the top position places though, there was some fantastic efforts from everyone who came along, some that had stepped out of their comfort zone to attempt the run, I even heard Andy Ferguson saying his pace was better than yesterday’s parkrun, although I’m not sure how much we can read into that when he did hilly Concord in Sheffield. It was also Charlie Goude’s first event he’s ever done and he absolutley smashed it with a cracking time!
Thankfully, I didn’t have to bring out my first aid kit and we didn’t have any lost people or DNF’s. So, from my angle, spot on event all round.
Many thanks for the kind comments from some of the participants towards the end, I’m really pleased you enjoyed it, it’s nice to know the effort of all the volunteers hasn’t gone unnoticed. Here’s to the rest of the series if you want to check out the pictures taken by the marshals check out the link here.
