Sunday August 17th.
Birchwood is an excellently organised race which attracted over 900 runners this year. It is not the most picturesque course and, whilst it is promoted as flat, there are sufficient ups to prevent it being the race in which you will achieve your best 10k of the year. This year, apparently at the behest of the police, the course had been changed, introducing a number of twists and turns, it was also the view of a number of runners that the course was ‘long’. Add a blustery wind and even those who were comfortable with their finishing position tended to be disappointed with their time. What made Birchwood a must for the Series was that it was Grand Prix and so we had a good turn-out from the stars, if not quite our strongest team, Grand Prix results will doubtless be posted as soon as they become available.
Peter was 9th., Trevor 29th., Rob 35th. managed to hold-off James, 40th.with Allan 61st. Trevor was 3rd. M50, Rob 3rd.M45
Diane was 2nd. Lady. Janine 1st.F45, Huma 3rd.F45 with Clare completing our Grand Prix team.
Paul, who has been worried by a lack of energy, had his best Series run taking the League 2 60-points. Phil was second, then Matt, Mick, Janine and Jon, who ‘did’ a hamstring. Mick was comfortably 1st.M65.
Tim won League 3 for the first time from Geoff, Alan, Gareth, Chris and Patrick.
In League 4 Huma won, of course. I had thought Jon was also upfront with her, out of sight, but he had a poor race and has now designated himself an off-road specialist. Having got my 7 in early, I now feel like one in a Tour de France breakaway as it starts to get swallowed by the peleton. Clare’s running superbly and making a late bid for one of the promotion places. John’s steady but not quite the force he was in the Spring. Amanda tends to be good or bad. She passed me at 2k and I thought that was good-bye, but I got back in front at 6 and assumed she had ‘blown’ until she powered back at 9. I’ve said that Bernard is improving race by race, I hadn’t seen him until he steamed passed with 50m to go. At least I was 3rd.M65.
Sharon started well, then was walking, then overtook me, then was walking again but then seems to have got it together in the second half for a respectable, if below-par, finish. Neither Rachael nor Carolyn are running to their full potential but both managed ok performances. Simon is now 12 months away from when he was running with total freedom, albeit a 12 months when he has picked-up perhaps a dozen M70 awards, here he was second. Gail was sporting a nice tan but struggled with the temperature change and a surfeit of trips to the all-inclusive sweet trolley.
Sue and Cat were very close, Sue taking the race, Cat the better chip time. Julie, with 58 League 5 points was more than happy with her performance as was Nina, who is racing off a lack of training miles. Then Jan, who is keeping herself in the promotion mix, a rare road race for Sarah and the prof., giving his dodgy heart another workout. Good to see Judith back, pacing Don round for his qualifying race. Elspeth’s working her way back, next Leanne and a little way further back Martin.
Ian