Race report by Stuart Mugridge: This race is run on the Saturday evening as part of Bromsgrove Carnival. The course runs west out of Bromsgrove on small country lanes.
It is an out and back course with a 2k lap at the far end that is run twice. Whilst not exactly hilly there is a hill near the start/finish that is pretty hard work and definitely went on longer on the return!
I think there might have been one other teal-clad harrier taking part but I only saw him ahead of me in the start area and didn’t see any others from Bournville on the results sheet. There were though a couple of welcome shouts of ‘go on Bournville’ out on the course.
The race was generally well organised although there was a slight delay as the people with the start mat arrived as everybody was lined up waiting for the off. After a few minutes of fiddling with mats and cables it was sorted and we were away.
I started a little nearer the front than I usually do and managed to pass a few more runners before the lanes narrowed too much and the hill kicked in just after passing under the M5. A fast downhill then allowed me to pass a few more before things settled more.
There were nice country views out to the west and lots of flower-speckled high hedges to help ease the effort. I’d found my pace and most of the time was staying in touch with the runners just ahead of me. The smaller lanes showed the recent heavy rains had been here with lots of debris and puddles. I struggled a bit about 4 to 6km mainly because of having to do a lap here and got going again once we turned back for home.
The final hill caught a few people out and I didn’t have as much power as I hoped here but I overtook as many people as I had pass me. I then flew down the other side and was able to pull away from those on my tail up the hill. The last km involved a run through Sanders Park and into the finish section with a good and vocal crowd to welcome us home.
I enjoyed the race and was retrospectively pleased with my time of 42:53 that put me in 59th place out of 363 finishers. I was also very impressed with the winner’s time 10minutes faster than me, a minute ahead of 2nd and 2 minutes ahead of 3rd.
Results here: http://www.timberhonger10k.co.uk/results2012.pdf
Photos here: http://www.yourraceday.co.uk/races/timberhonger10k_12/index.html
A good effort Stuart. 42:53 was a reasonable time given the nature of the course and the prevalent underfoot terraine.I feel sure that given the right conditions that you can go under 40 minutes for 10k in the not too distant future.Congratulations on successfully completing the 2012 Timberhonger 10k.
Barrie Roberts