I first became aware of Ken Burgess of Altrincham AC when I reached the Vet 60 age category and numbers were thinning in direct proportion to hair lines. He has won every race I can recall since then, by around a minute a mile in my case. I thought I was six months older and would get a brief window of opportunity this year for the Vet 70 prizes but it turned it was he who is older so that chance went. I thought good race selection might glean a few but he even turned up at Cloud 9 – yep, by nine minutes. His bus pass obviously doesn’t extend to Buxworth so it was six races into the new vet category before I eventually won something. Imagine my delight when he was wearing a marshalls bib at Dunham.
Roy and I play spot Ken on the warm up now. At Hollins Green with five minutes to go Roy reported in. “Not seen Ken – but Pete is here”. And so I had 5K of Pete running really well – and tied to me. The pressure was that bad I was rather hoping Ken would be running at Bowdon.
When Tony asked if I would write something on the “less quick” I told him my only recollection of the race was another 5K tied to Pete. The pair of us were in a senior citizens bubble and did not see anything.
By the pub after the start we had gone past Angie and very briefly Sarah. In training, Sarah reckons she has no pace judgement so I selfishly hoped that might prove the case but she soon pulled away and ran steadily to almost catch Chris C. Chris never likes to do it the easy way. He ran Wythenshawe and Hollins Green very well on the same day (followed by sub 7’s around Ikea afterwards). At about 4K I could see Sharon up ahead chasing Sally and Pete and I did manage to close the gap a little. Sally managed to stay ahead with Sharon finishing just behind three seconds off her pb. That will go long before the summer is out. I managed to hold off another great run from Pete who was followed in by Angie who had professed her total dislike of 5K’s before the start. It was great to see Soraya in next. A year ago after a long illness she thought she would never be well enough to run another race – now she is Group 4’s 'Iron Lady'. Nina came through strongly in spite of her fitness levels being down. Julie had a great autumn last year but has missed masses of training through illness so she was happy to show she is on the way back. Judith Davidson showed the 1500m finish of her youth by blasting past Roy at the finish. Roy had a much improved run at Hollins but his impressive training on Tuesday did not help his performance two days later. One of my favourite rants is shoe manufactures spend a fortune developing improved trainers then shoving round or oval laces in them which come undone. Janet was wearing just such laces and had to stop twice. Jan was followed in by Leanne, Elspeth, Don, Belinda, Gail and Martin.
Bosley today then Roaches. Roaches? You must be kidding. Dunham in reverse on the same night. Maybe Ken Burgess is on holiday!!
Simon