Summer Series Race 15
It was hotish, sufficient for Trevor to don his foreign-legion outfit
Malcolm leads the table; 7 races, 6 Wilmslow first places. Rob has run 5 races and has 5 Wilmslow firsts. Teggs Nose was only the second time that they had come head to head. Rob before the race pointed-out that Malcolm had won this race no less than six times, and whereas Llandudno had played to his strengths, he felt that, here, Malcolm would definitely be favourite.
Rob got it right; Malcolm finished 3rd. and was first vet, Rob finished 6th., Tom was 17th.and 1st. M50, Andrew 23rd. and Thomas 25th.
Katy was our first lady. More surprisingly Sally beat Nicky, Janine and Kate.
Graham Taylor gained another Division 2 win ahead of Andy Watts, again excelling in the hills, Craig and Katy.
As he showed at Goyts Moss, this is Matt's sort of course and he repeated his division 3 win. Chris produced a strong run behind Sally just getting ahead of the Nicky, Janine, Kate and John cluster.
I made a conservative start and then tried to hold station on the uphill sections and use the downhill to progress. I worked my way ahead of Nina, Don and Owen. This put me behind Carolyn, a repeat of Goyts Moss, I feared, when I followed her for four miles without making any impression. However, on a particularly steep bank, I got ahead and closed on Sharon. It was great in the middle section of the course that Simon, Roy and Mike kept appearing. I got a mix of encouragement and what some might call banter, and others abuse. They also conveyed that I had opened a gap on Carolyn. Sharon has a bad knee, this was not a course for bad knees, but she was determined to get the division 4 60 points. I was catching her until she saw me; then it was race over, off she went.
The race was designated 7.3 miles, although Sir Nicholas in his enthusiasm tried to shorten it (but numbers have got him into trouble in the past). My Garmin said I'd already run further, Malcolm and Rob were warming-down, I shouted across " how far to go?", "not far", they replied. "Not far", what sort of useless information is that? I got round the corner, Nick, unprompted, "300m to the corner, turn right 100m to the finish". That's what I wanted to know, I passed, in the last 50m, the Moorland Harrier who had overtaken me with half-a-mile to go. I found the course hard, harder than Goyt's Moss but that may just have been me, I ran better here, maybe I was following Chris's blunt 'footballer coach' advice following recent poor performances; "fewer excuses, more hard work", wise words.
A desperately tired Owen lost-out, in the last mile to Don and Nina, despite Nina having being conned by Simon on Thursday into running 12 miles when she thought she was doing 8. Owen did manage to hold-off Catriona, whose work schedule only appears to allow her to do the tough races as she claws her way to seven. Trevor, however, revels in this sort of thing.
Ian