Bollington race report

Bollington 10k

Sunday August 27^th

Summer Series, race 16

Bollington effectively brings to an end my running year. I hope to get-in a couple more races later on but we will need someone else to do a write-up on:-

• Hades Hill, Thursday September 7^th.
• Sutton 10k, Sunday September 17^th, Cheshire Grand Prix
• Congleton Half, Sunday October 1^st.

The parkruns, aside from the motivations in setting them up, provide a less competitive environment for those recovering from injury or whose better days are behind them. I will continue to log people’s times and publish the parkrun4 league table.

Many of you have run the Bollington 10k before but, for me, it was new territory. It follows a familiar format; the first half is predominantly uphill, the second back down. Psychologically this is comfortable, you know, at halfway, the worst is over. I actually find, however, that I perform better when races are the other way round, possibly because downhill in the first half acclimatises you in preparation for a harder finish. The first half was not easy but it would be fairer to describe the course as undulating than hilly, a number of us, at the frailer end of the club, were able to do the 10k without walking, of which we were duly proud.

Numbers in the Series have been lower than in previous years and Tony might want to give thought. In my view, having completed my 15^th. consecutive Series, I do not think it is a reflection on the choice or variety of races. It will be interesting to see if the revitalisation that Cat, Rob and others are giving the Half Marathon has an impact on next year’s entries and whether Tony wants to initiate a make-over on the Series. Personally, it suits me as it is, but I’m no longer in the mainstream.

Anyway 23 of us made it to Bollington. It was dry, warm edging towards hot and with no wind – not a bad morning for running.

Great run by Peter who won the race by 33 seconds. Then Diane made it a Wilmslow double, first lady by over 4 minutes.

Richard was 24th., Matt 26^th. and Jarrod 32^nd.

Janine and Louisa were the race’s 4^th. and 5^th. ladies with Nicky 14^th.

Paul Garnett won League 2, 11 seconds faster than Paul Norris, third was Janine then, a mere 7 seconds behind, Craig, and finally Louisa, who had declared she was going to take the first half easy.

Mark made it another win in League 3. Patrick, back from stuffing himself with food on his Baltic cruise nevertheless won this stage of his perennial contest with Nicky. Chris seems to have sorted his injury problems. Gail is between her two ‘ultras’ and at present has neither the pace nor focus for the shorter events. Cat is picking-up momentum again after her injury.

Colin, on his way to 9 League 4 wins out of 9 races, soon left the rest of us behind. Normally we would have expected Julie to lead Simon and I on the uphill section and then it would be a matter of whether I could catch her on the downhill and/or Simon on the flat. Julie however had been kicked by her horse (again) and at Shrigley Hall was behind both of us. I failed to establish the downhill lead I would need before 6km. and Simon left me on the 3km. flat along the Middlewood Way. Behind us Sue, Carolyn, who are both steadily improving on the way back to where they were, and Stephen were having a similar contest. The girls were both satisfied with their times, Stephen less so.

I experimented running with a power meter, which I have imported from the States. In cycling, the high-tech teams, like Sky, swear by power meters but, I believe, they are new to running and therefore may or may not be accurate or useful. In theory it should enable you to run more efficiently particularly, on a day like today, when the course mixes uphill, downhill and flat. I would anticipate that most efficient way to run is to make the same degree of effort (use the same amount of power) irrespective of the gradient. The Sky riders allow themselves to ‘go into the red’ but accept that they must only do so for a very limited amount of time. At present I am merely collecting data. In truth the relevance of these things to my running is minimal but I enjoy playing with them.