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Paul Mason reports

Multi-surface trail race in deepest Worcestershire with mud, slippery grass, riverbanks, low bridges, stiles, farm tracks, pavement, no hills and mud, but tea and cakes were included at the finish. To make things even better there were vast amounts of heated-indoor toilets, changing facilities, showers and toilet roll all in a tomato grower’s greenhouse. The Thames Valley events will be a bit of a shock. Not sure about the distance as apparently Paul did the last mile in over 10 minutes.

 

Paul 14th 37:11

Barbara 116th 51:52

Updated 10th May to include Jeremy Allsup

Pretty close at the front between Steve Hopkins and David Lee on  blustery day, with Steve just getting the upper hand.

Further back, Jim Butcher narrowly missed his own MV70 record in an excellent 48:26

With apologies for the delay due to the change of webmaster, Simon and Kathryn Black report from Barcelona:

What better way to spend the start of Saturday evening than to venture north of Barcelona in Mid November after the daytime temperature had touched 20 degrees and find your way to a local festival with a 5 mile race attached run at night around the roads of a local town and where the council sponsor the race and the Police give their time for free. That only tells half the story as 5 miles is rarely if ever run and night races are unheard of and attached to the 5 mile race is a childrens’s 2 mile carnage run where Kids set off faster than Usain Bolt and at least 5 fall over in the first 30 metres and never make it any further, but it was noted that 50% of the field set off like this….

Onto the main race where Kathryn on her return from injury posted a mighty impressive PB of 40:36 to take more than 20 seconds off her previous best time on a course which was hillier than a mountain goat would have liked. Kathryn’s has only been back running 3x a week for 4-5 weeks, so this was particularly impressive. Kathryn finished 33rd lady out of 174 (19th in category) who finished and ran at 8 min miles for the first time in over a year. And for those of you wanting mile posts… ummm they put up a couple of Km posts, but forgot about the others and no-one really cared. Health and safety was also missing a little but that’s part of the charm!  Simon also had a good run to finish in 29:46 and come 18th overall. The race which had 777 finishers was won in 24:15 with a further 10 under 28 minutes, but as usual you got a T-shirt for your troubles (before the race!) as well as a baguette, some gravy and some fruit. A mighty good race and great that Kathryn is on the comeback trail with her first PB of 2010.

And to top it all, they hold a Correfoc afterwards which is legalised firework throwing in the streets…….

Kathryn Black   40:36 chip         40:56 gun

Simon Black     29:46 chip         29:49 gun

Tony Curtin claimed the men’s 50 vet record from Mike May at the Marlow 5 on Sunday with a time of 32:12 and a very impressive 81.6% age graded score, but to make up for it Mike claimed the 60 vet records with 35:57 and a 73.8% age grading. See the club records page for more records (and targets!).

Congratulations to both the ladies team of Joanne Logie, Michelle Hopkins & Denisa Polcerova who won the ladies team prize, and the men’s team of Simon Black, Steve Hopkins & Ross McDonough who came third.

Any more PBs to report?

Full results (pdf)

Paul and Bee report:

Possibly the most un-scenic course we have ever run, including our Chalvey route. The marshals defied death by standing in the middle of the road keeping the traffic away from the runners. The toilets made the cross-country facilities look palatial. Bee had a very good time despite deciding not to run at 3 o’clock in the morning. Only one hill at about 1.5 miles but a long downhill stretch to get good times. It was nice to run with different faces and vest names, even though the accents seemed a bit weird.