The stakes were high: it was the culmination of the Cheshire Grand Prix and our ladies had an outside chance of pinching the title from Macc while the men sought to hang on to their lead. As ever history would only be made by those who turned up and by mid week it was not looking good for group 1 with Damian, Malcolm, Stuart, Jim, Graham and Bill all missing from the team. So it was a welcome surprise to see Mike Halman and Sally arriving at registration followed by a repaired Damian. It was the strongest Cheshire field that I’d seen since Wilmslow Half and one by one most of my local rivals appeared in the starting area.
The Sutton route tends to produce a good race with the smaller “warm up lap” followed by the long fast run down the A51 and finally an undulating climb back to the village – ample potential for breaking away and blowing up. With so many competitive runners it was going to be interesting.
Mike led us off into the first lap with Damian on his shoulder. After about 1 km Damian eased into the lead while Dave Norman swept past me to join the leaders. I was in a large group including most of the runners who usually just beat me in local races. They gratefully tucked in behind me as we ran out into a strong headwind. We jockeyed for position at 4k as we turned onto the main road but I managed to squeeze through and together with Stuart Doyle from Vale Royal set a cracking pace that I hoped would take me clear of Macclesfield’s Andy Lamont. It is a very long hill though and by the end we’d all had a go to no avail and rounded the corner all bunched again.
Turning back towards Sutton the bends and inclines seemed hard work and as Tony cycled past I had to work to stay with the group. Into the last 1.5k I was losing some of the faster runners but still keeping up with Andy. Suddenly we were gaining on an ailing Damian (victim of his own pace in the first 5k). Just when it looked like we might catch him he woke up and nonchalantly kept us at bay till the finish. Into the last 500m Andy came surging past but I managed to claw back past him on the final hill. In all the excitement I’d forgotten about times and the big clock ticked past the elusive 33:59 just before I crossed the line.
Mike and Sally answering the team call from London both delivered finishing as first and second counters respectively. Tom ran in just behind me, as consistent as ever. And Trevor Morris … yes it was another PB. If you open any running magazine you’ll find at least one complicated training programme designed to engineer sustained improvement. They could do with taking note of the more direct Morris Method: “just run a PB in every race and everything else will fall into place nicely”. Steve Dempsey who may well be on the same diet this year completed the six male counters.
The ladies ran in some great performances but the Macc team were just too strong on the day.
Rob Downs