Suz West reports on the first event of the Warwickshire Road Race League 2013: We arrived early at just after 8am,the race started at 9am.This gave us time to park and find the facilites which was a row of porto loos and a desk on the side of the grass.
As we lined up ready to go there was a sea of teal,however it seemed only bournville girls were taking part in this event!!! (N.B. Tom Walters was there as the lone rep for the men!)
The start was on grass I stood between the 40 and 50 min start as was hoping for 45ish,unfortunatley the grass set my hayfever off which I had not expected as it was rather cold and one of the only benifits of this stupidly long winter,no hayfever!We were off on what I had expected to be a flat course so as we made our way up a slight incline into some woods I soon realised a) this is not flat b)a night of partying before 10k is not good prepartion.
The start was quite bunched up and followed a narrow path through woods,i over took a few people but decided to just keep a steady pace.It was a very nice woods that led us out onto the out skirts of a golf course,slightly concerned a golf ball may swing my direction i speeded up slightly and enjoyed the flatter course now.This didnt last long we headed down an extremley steep hill,im sure i pratically slowed to walking pace,at the bottom the amount of dust dragged up from the runners was creating a dust cloud.This went in my eyes and didnt help with my allergy problem.
I was therefore somewhat relived to find we were now back on too the road,heading back out to the 6k mark the leamington crowds were out in forse and with your name put onto your number I enjoyed people shouting my name,i was quite amused by the people who couldnt prnounce Suz!As I go to college in Leamington but dont really know the area it was a great way to look around this town too.
The route now took us down to the canal were the faster runners could be seen heading towards the finish,I sore Linda in this group who gave me an encouraging shout out,thankyou :).We then looped back onto the streets of leamington before taking a very sharp turn back onto the canal,infact this course is possibly one of the bendiest ive encountered.The canal then took us back onto road,still with ample spectators alot of whom had take away coffees,I just wanted coffee by this point!!We made our way to the last 1k into a park I managed to speed up,but im sure my attemt at sprint finishing started a bit too early(i tried!).I crossed the finish with a chip time of 45.16 a 10k pb 🙂
Sarah and Linda had already finished,and Leonie,Jude and Lesley followed soon making up bvh leamington ladies.
The goody bag was water,a medal and a t.shirt that was small and fitted(bonus).Overall an enjoyable but twisty race,well organised and great support from the locals.
BvH Chip times:
Linda Howell 38.39
Sarah Rock 41.23
Suz West 45.16
Tom Walters 47.25
Jude Glynn 49.08
Leonie Clitherow 49.19
Lesley Pymm 56.45
Thankyou Suz for your Regency 10k Report. Congratulations to all the BvHers who successfully completed the 10k Course.Not the ideal race for a pb 10k attempt.Just shows that Suz can go even faster!
Great report Suz!
I agree with Lesley, the course was very strange! The off-road bit was nice, but really congested. Sadly the runners in my section were not quiet: I had to endure ‘loud voiced male’ behind who decided on an endless commentary, punctuated with some not very amusing jokes and running tips with his friend (who wasn’t interested)…I was concentrating on breathing so anyone who can chat whilst running at race pace is rather annoying, maybe trying to escape his irritating voice made me run faster?!
Very flat course, which is not my favourite terrrain (I like hills so I can legitimately go slow), but still a PB… 🙂
Thanks for the very full report Suz. I found it a very odd race. For a ‘road race’ there was a lot that was trail – which suits me as I prefer trail. As Leonie said afterwards, if the weather had been wet, trail shoes may have been better. As it was, road shoes were fine. The first half of the run was eerie – there were all those runners plodding along and no other sound. The marshals did not speak (Army Cadets) and where I was the runners were not talking either. There were no spectators out on the golf course. Then suddenly, as you said, you got to 6k and it all changed. It was like a big city event with all those crowds shouting at us. It was an interesting course, there were lots of bends. I was going to say it was not a pb course, but you have disproved that – well done. From a runners point of view it would have been better with the road bit first and then the trail, this would have given everyone a chance to sort themselves out before the narrow paths. From the organisers point of view, that would not work as they wanted the town centre finish. Strange event, but I quite enjoyed it! I liked all the detail on the results – lots of age related stuff!