Cheshire Grand Prix
Summer series, race 18
Sunday August 21st.
The backdrop to Birchwood does not quite match that of Llandrynog, but it is shorter and flatter. It may have been because it is the height of the holiday season but the race, even with Grand Prix status, did not inspire either the quantity or quality of Wilmslow runners that the occasion required.
We did, however, have Peter, representing Cheshire, and finishing 7th. , and 2nd.M40, and James who came 81st.
Janine, who also won the L45 category, was our first lady followed by Louisa who this week finished ahead of Amy. Nicky was 2nd. L55.
Tim now looks to have fully recovered from injury with an excellent League 2 win over Mick who was 2nd. M65. Good run from Christian, ahead of Louisa.
The two League 3 pace-setters were there, Bernard, who is getting better and better, outpacing not only league leader, Gareth but the whole of League 2. Amy was third and then Mark, who edged-out Nicky by 2 seconds, but was 5 seconds behind Sally. Chris then led in John and Patrick.
Last week in League 4 it was Angela showing her form, this week it was Sally’s turn to demonstrate how well she is running this year, taking another 60 points. Gail again took the 59 points and Rachel had another good run for third. Then came Simon, 2nd. M70, and Ian.
Jan has been running PBs at the Wilmslow Parkrun and felt sufficiently injury-free to test her form over a longer race, to great effect taking the League 5 60 points. Cat, who had been overachieving on her ‘project’, came down to earth, starting, she felt, too fast she then could not find the right balance between heart-rate and pace, nevertheless 6 wins in 7 races will take her to the top of League 5. Holidays are clearly good for Elspeth. Julie took it steadily saving herself for bigger challenges ahead later in the week. Nina, celebrated the start of her career-break with what looked to be a non too taxing run. Whatever your troubles feel for Martin, his tendonitis of the Achilles flared up once again at around 3k and from there on it was a hobble not a run.
I keep finding increasingly imaginative ways of running badly. In the second km, I latched-onto the two 50-minute pacers. Dropping-in behind them we turned off the road onto a footpath. They were bigger than me, running shoulder-to-shoulder, chatting. They eased 4″ apart, there was a stump, I never saw it, hit it full-on with my chest and got dumped to the ground. A number of you saw me as I took a few minutes to recover. I thought I was just winded but suffered a painful afternoon and evening.