Saturday 12th March Perry Park Birmingham
I picked up Tom early Saturday morning & we set off for Birmingham hoping the rain would hold off. By the time we got to the Alexander Stadium – which is currently being renovated for the USA to use in 2012 – the weather was glorious not what you expect for X Country weather! We parked next to Claire Stevinson after much waving to gain her attention & we set off to look at the course. It was 3 x 2K laps for the women & 4 x 2k laps for the men. It was very dry, fairly flat & the sun was out – albeit the wind was rather strong, particularly on the up hill finish – not sure who decided that when devising the course but it was unpleasant!
The ladies set off at midday, it was a very strong field & I was engulfed by fast runners straight away. I couldn’t believe it when my watch bleeped to say that I had done the first mile in 6.14 – that's road racing pace! Unfortunately I paid the price & ended up going backwards. It was great to have supporters there including Claire who kept telling me that I looked strong – I was obviously hiding the fact that I was struggling! The first 3 ladies had a real battle, Lucy Elliot winning from Claire Martin – who was the winner in Dublin at the International last year. Claire had beaten Lucy the week before at the Inter Counties X Country Championships. Claire did mention that even she had found it hard work with her average mile pace being 5.43! Bev Jenkins from Salford who was the winner at the NVAC X Country champs couldn’t stay with the front runners on this occasion. Bev is running the London Marathon in a few weeks with Katie Price, who plans on doing it in 7hrs, Bev has done this before with Katie, a far cry from last years 2.57 in the Dublin Marathon!
The men’s race was an equally high quality field, the speed that they were going was phenomenal, we could barely run across the field in time to cheer them on. It was again a real tussle for the first two, the lead changing until the last lap when Martin Cox from Salford pulled away from Mark Dalkins of Telford AC. They made it look easy. Tom looked comfortable all the way round & maintained the 3rd place V55 virtually from start to finish. I think the 2nd V55 had beaten him in a fell race the weekend previously; unfortunately Tom couldn’t exact his revenge on this occasion.
It was certainly an experience & very high quality athletes, for me it just showed me how much work I have to do to catch up with these ladies.
LADIES – 6K
1st Lucy ELLIOT – Winchester – V45 – 21.59
2nd Claire MARTIN – Telford AC – V35 – 22.02
3rd Amy CHALK – Bristol & West – V35 – 22.04
11th Bev JENKINS – Salford – V40 – 23.31 (2nd V40)
32nd Louise RUDD – Wilmslow – V35 – 25.30 (13th V35)
MENS – 8K
1st Martin COX – Salford – V40 – 26.32
2nd Mark DALKINS – Telford AC – V40 – 26.45
3rd Paul WARD – Telford AC – V40 – 26.53
57th Tom MCGAFF – Wilmslow – V55 – 29.48 (3rd V55)
Louise