Sunday April 24th.
Summer Series, Race 6
A local village race; no hype, no TV, no celebrities, no crowds. It was running at the opposite extreme to the London Marathon. Our numbers were inevitably down but that has its own rewards.
It was cool, bit of a cold breeze but in many ways a good day for running a good time. Whitley is not really a PB course, it undulates, or, at least, that’s the excuse a number of us were pedalling at the finish.
Sharon, who is having a wonderful year, was again the winner of the Ladies’ race. Barry was third in the Mens’.
Sharon, 21st., followed Barry home . Tom was 24th. and 2nd.M>60.
Louisa was our second lady behind Sharon, Diane third.
Matt made it 6 wins out of 6 in League 2. Tim was next, then Mick , who was 3rd.M>60, Louisa was six seconds ahead of Christian and a further six seconds back was Diane. Then came Richard. I was surprised to hear Jarrod’s voice at 4k, he confirmed he had been a late starter; 4 minutes difference between his chip and gun times – it is the gun that counts in the Series.
Huma, 2nd.F>45 beat Andy in a thin League 3.
James’ running in the latter part of 2015 tempted us to promote him to League 3 even though he failed to make the top two in League 4. We decided not to do so. His time here added weight to the opinion that we had made the wrong decision. He comfortably beat Sally, who, prior to Whitley, had three races, three wins. Clare, 2nd.F>55 had her best run of 2016 beating Angela, who despite being 3rd.F>55 was disappointed with her performance. Colin had a steady run. Ian, as at Mow Cop, under-performed.
Catriona, as part of her project to apply business techniques to running, has set herself very ambitious targets. It seems to be working; at Llandudno she was a minute behind me, here two minutes ahead. She took the League 5 60-points despite Leanne’s PB. Peter, who, having been restricted to one race in 2015, was making his 2016 debut, as was Belinda, he was more than pleased with the outcome.
Mine was a strange day. Warming-up, I felt a heavy blow on the top of my head. I was puzzled, I could see no fallen branch, but was then hit by a second similar blow. The only thing I could see was a bird. The third attack was aimed at my face, I beat it off with my arms and started running again. But then came a third painful blow to the top of the head. I now gave-in and set-off back, running backwards I managed to beat-off the next attack, again towards my face. I then went flat -out, getting away with just one further attack on the back of my head. The locals tell me the buzzard has previous.
Rob, taking a minute from the glow of another brilliant run at London, commented that the buzzard is part of the vulture family. On holiday, on an island off Brazil, having completed my day’s run, I flopped onto the beach exhausted, closed my eyes, lay on my back and gently recovered in the sunshine. When, five minutes later, I opened my eyes there were eight vultures circling above my head.
Ian
Great report Ian!