Race Report 8 June - Peer pressure gives Currie another win After living in Bramhall for six years I spotted Bert the Turtle for the first time today – floating on a piece of wood in the pond just as Steve said. So summer continues unrepentantly and it probably couldn’t have been better conditions than this morning (though slightly warm and humid perhaps) – no muddy shoes to scrub or splattered T shirts to soak. This was evidenced by the 77 PB’s out of 442 runners which included PB’s from some very long serving and loyal Bramhall park runners. Unfortunately there were a couple of calamities at the start as two children were accidentally knocked over including Daisy Tomlinson who has a very nasty gash to her knee as she was accidentally pushed from behind when someone lost their balance. It’s really important to line up in approximate order of expected finishing times with the faster runners at the start and the slower runners at the rear – a little like Formula 1 – no wonder those in front always win it if they start in front I hear you say!! It only takes 30 seconds to get 450 runners past the start line but safety is more important than chasing a time when we have a constricted (narrow) start funnel. On a related matter, if you finished today between 26.00 and 26.59 you were in good company as 47 of you did which isn’t far off one every second. That was the busiest time to finish in terms of a stampede to the finish line and when Jim the time keeper, Janine and her funnel helpers and Martin handing out the position tags really start to work hard after you have crossed the finish line. Thanks to all those volunteering today for which you earn 250 points each. Which leads nicely to the three first finishers who were all sub 18 minutes and all achieved PB’s doing so in such wonderful conditions. From what I could see of the race unfolding in front of me it was a real battle for 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Tom Peers led for almost all the way with Gavin Brown catching and overtaking Jonathan Currie to move into 2nd place. Jonathan clearly didn’t like this, or his ipod kicked in to one of his favourite songs, because he dug deep to move from 3rd to 1st by racing Tom to the line to beat him by two seconds and Gavin by 16 seconds. The final result was Jonathan Currie first in 17.35 (his third win in four appearances), Tom Peers second in 17.37 and Gavin Brown third in 17.51. I happen to know that both Jonathan and Tom have both joined Wilmslow Running Club and Jonathan puts his improvement down to the fast interval sessions on Tuesday evenings – he’s got an aim of sub 17 minutes on a flat 5k and I am confident he will achieve that before September when the rugby season starts and he needs to start bulking up again! Gavin has been coming to Bramhall since 2009 and every year his time has improved. Jill Tavini won the women’s race in 22.21 which was her first win in 35 appearances. I am pleased to say that Jill and Karl’s daughter, Sophia, is better after last week’s medical scare whilst running, though understandably rested today. Mollie Cooked (J14) was 2nd in 22.37 and Sarah Kemp was 3rd in 22.49. Here is a brief summary of some top performances today: - Gareth Hurfurt ran 18.38 to knock one minute off his PB set over a year ago. Gareth now runs more locally at Marple along with our most capped local park runner, Brian Platt (230). - Frank Podd ran a 2 second PB of 19.06 on his 154th run. - Lok Li ran a PB of 19.22 on his 117th run. The last PB was set about one year ago. - Paul Norris ran a stunning 19.31 on his 163rd run knocking an incredible 22 secs off. - The Newsome family will be celebrating today. Dad Paul ran a 19.36 PB on his 71st run, Mum Sarah ran a 25.08 PB on her 98th run, Harry (J14) got a PB too whilst brother and sister Thomas and Libby still finished very strongly. - Paul Robison ran a 23.15 on his 64th run. - Janine Waddicor managed a PB of 24.13 on her 82nd run. - Neil Coulson ran a PB of 25.23 on his 77th run. Congratulations to Adrian Jarvis on his 100th run and to Amy Walker and Heather Brown on their 50th runs. Steve Shaughnessy achieved the highest age grading of the day at 81.5% with a time of 19.11 in the V55 category with Rob Currie and Gavin Brown 2nd and 3rd highest age gradings of 79.5% each. Finally, here are a couple of other ideas if you want to pursue options. Firstly, the Sale Sizzler 5k series (4 events) starts on Thursday evening 4th July and is a fast, flat 5k course in Wythenshawe Park with PB potential with 500 runners ranging from sub 15 minutes to 35+ minutes. Secondly, a group of runners from around the region are joining together in the “Longest Sunday”. This comprises running 7 of the local parkrun courses in one day – 23 June. These are not official parkrun events (so don’t count as an “attendance”, wont be marshalled and is not covered by parkrun insurance) but will be a series of freedom runs around 7 of the local courses giving you the chance to try the different locations in what should be a fun day out. The link to facebook site is https://facebook/events/363422140432921/?ref=ts&fref=ts This has more details. If you are interested to learn more about the phenomenon that is parkrun, then it now operates in eight countries; UK (196), Australia (35), South Africa (13), Poland (7), Denmark (7), New Zealand (4), Eire (4) and USA (2). Just within the UK alone there have been 2.4 million individual runs covering 12 million km. Keep enjoying the running. Charlie Batho
Posted on: Sun, 09 Jun 2013 05:42:06 +0000
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