Mike and Sally : Tales from down south

Another saturday, another cross country at Richmond park. This time, Sally was competing for the Dysart trophy, while Mike and the men’s team were after the Shearer trophy, in this inter-club race. It was warmer than last weekend, but much windier, with most of the 4.5 ladys miles and 5.5 mens miles being on exposed gravel tracks. There was one mashall, and only sawdust spots to mark out the course, and so on such a windy day it didn’t take long for the route to become blurred, and for the leading men to take a whole 1000m detor! My race (Sally) was okay. I was in the top twenty of about 75-80 runners and fourth counter for HW. Both my nemesis’ overtook me on the second lap, but I was mentally falling apart up the hill at the time, and had nothing to kick with. I was also slightly queezy from a college pub incident the night before, and had still been throwing up an hour before the start. All things considered, it was a fairly good day out, and the fresh air did wonders for my hangover, meaning that I was able to enjoy watching the mens race. Mike and two Egyptian teammates took a strong lead from the start, but then those of us spectating new nothing else for about 20 minutes until they finished the first of two laps. An Egyptian still led, but Mike was no where near the front, and as runners flew by I was becoming filled with dread as to what had gone wrong, and what mood I was going to have to spend the rest of the day with. He finally came into view in about 15th place, looking distressed, and trying to signal something to us. All was revealed when the second Egyptian came round again and pulled out of the race, only to yell abuse at the race organisers who were responsible for their taking a wrong turn. Twenty minutes later the winners came into view, and with some superhuman effort Mike had managed to claw his way back to 2nd place, despite the additional kilometer. It was a fantastic display of effort, and I was really pleased for him. I was less pleased when I was still hanging around almost an hour later, in the dark, waiting for him to finish his warm down so we could begin the 45 minute cycle ride home. Oh, and it began to lash down! Mike may be able to add a thing or two, so I’ll let him take over from here………..
MIKE: I’ve got nothing to add, except that the first lap took 17 minutes and the second lap took 14! And the overall result? Neither team won the cups!