Laura Leslie reports on the ‘Autumnal 5 Mile Road Race’ – 21st Aug 2013

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Autumnal Five Mile Road Race and Race Walk (incorporating Warwickshire Championship) – Wed 21st Aug, 2013

A quick train ride from Birmingham after work and we were back in the War Memorial Park in Coventry where we had both raced a couple of years ago in a similar event. It was a nice surprise to see Paul Thompson, Lesley Pymm and Barrie Roberts (with supporters!) also getting ready to race. My Dad also showed up to support along with our regular canine supporter Kelly who mainly just drank all my water and dribbled on me.

Coventry Godivas have a great running tradition with former/current members such as Dave Moorcroft, Marlon Devonish, Bill Adcocks and Dick Taylor, and they always seem to organise good races. This one was part of the Warwickshire Road Race League and incorporated the Warwickshire 5 mile championship so there was a record turnout and some very speedy looking people on the start line!

The course is 2.5 laps of the park, half of which is gently downhill and the other half is gently uphill. Of course by the third time round, the word gently doesn’t feature too highly in my inner monologue…

Anyhow, we all got round and everybody did fantastically well! Paul T was very close to his pb, 11th overall and 2nd in his age category, Barrie smashed his goal of sub-40 running 38:45, and Lesley Pymm ran 45:32 to squeeze into the top 200. Well done all!

Last time I ran this race I left my husband Paul for dust. This time the roles were reversed and he soon sped out of view. Paul finished in 33:34 knocking 3 minutes off his pb! How annoying, yet impressive  is that?! I also got a pb by over 30 seconds and was really happy, even though I’m now the slowest in the family again!

Overall a good race, fairly flat, well organised and a good mix of runners. I’d recommend this or any of the other Godiva races as I’m sure they are all as good.

Full results here: http://www.coventry-godiva-harriers.org.uk/index.htm

BvH results:

11 Paul Thompson M40 27:37

86 Paul Gorman M35 33:34

103 Laura Leslie SW 34:30

152 Barrie Roberts M70 38:45

199 Lesley Pymm W60 45:32

4 Replies to “Laura Leslie reports on the ‘Autumnal 5 Mile Road Race’ – 21st Aug 2013”

  1. Thanks for the report, Laura. Well done to all. I really struggled with it and nearly stopped. I knew that if I did I would have to do one of the longer races to qualify for the WRRL. As it is, I have now completed! I finished 2 or 3 minutes slower than my last run there on a similar course. It would be good to see more of the sea of teal at the WRRL events next year.

  2. Congratulations to you all! Cracking times here and great to see so much improvement by everyone. Well done

  3. Thankyou for your excellent Race Report Laura. I fully concur with you that Coventry Godiva put on good races —— And ,yes,there were some good performances from the BvHers. It would be good to see `a sea of teal` at next year`s event.
    Barrie

  4. Great report, Laura, and well done to everyone who ran. Some great results. 🙂