London, Boston, Stratford, Ironbridge & Midland Masters Relays

Capital performances!!!!
Sunday saw the staging of road running’s Cup Final, the Virgin Money London Marathon, & eleven members from the Club were lucky enough to join 38,000 others in this annual festival of running. Conditions were wet pre-race but mercifully dry & an ideal temperature for running during the race. Running a superb race Jenny Laing led the contingent home with an excellent 3.12.38 with marathon debutant Christina Cooper running a really sensible, consistently paced race, to finish in 3.32.37.  Nikki Reeves was next in a well-run time of 3.43.58 before Mark Coombes, with plenty of endurance from his ultra-training, stopped the clock in 3.46.02. Gary Price recorded a well-deserved 3.52.55 before two runners, Kelly Knight & Steve Fowler, who reached the start line after an injury hampered build up, completed the classic distance in 4.03.48 & 4.16.55  respectively. Next was Jenny Tattersall who performed brilliantly on her marathon debut to record 4.27.10.  In every marathon there are tales of bad luck and on this occasion all of the bad luck went to Andy Hawtin, whose pre-race form indicated a sub-3 hour time. Unfortunately, during the race, a knee injury badly affected his race & he limped home in 4.34.35. With possibly the best record from anyone in the East Midlands for consecutive appearances (think its 18), Ron Lane & Ian Tilley again battled round a course that by now is very familiar. Ron clocked 4.39.58 to again achieve the MV70 qualifying time while Ian recorded a respectable 5.52.36.
On a really busy day of running the Club did well to field 4 teams in the annual Midland Masters Open Relays, which utilised a 4.4k loop on the Conkers Trail with Conkers YHA acting as race headquarters. To field teams many runners ran in a younger age group with the fastest time being recorded by the MV35 ‘B’ team of Dominic Sharman (15.31), Chris Pearson (15.23), Paul Chapman (16.56) & Adrian Middleton (18.24). Their combined times were good enough to give them 4^th place overall, in a very competitive category. The MV 35 ‘A’ team comprising Paul Glover (19.49), Wayne Kelleher (20.57), Dave Renshaw (21.05) & Chris Morton (21.50) gave their all to finish in 7^th in their category. The only team prize winners were the MV45 team of Dave Eyre (17.46), Andy Orme (17.05), Steve Leafe (17.43) & Chris Gunstone (17.10) whose combined efforts gave them an excellent 3^rd place in their category. Running again after sterling efforts in last week’s Manchester Marathon, Tracey Glover (19.28) & Laura Storer (20.30) combined with Seran Bradley (21.56) in the WV35 category to record a hard working 5^th place in their category. Last but not least Malcolm Moore (19.29) & Inge Moore (27.50) ran in composite teams that were amongst the prize winners, while the resurgent Louise Insley, running for Heanor RC, her first claim club, recorded the fastest women’s time of the day, 16.25.
On the same day as London, three of the Club’s runners tackled the Shakespeare Marathon with Carolyn Ife completing the full marathon in 5.19.18 & Kerry Jackson & Felicity Towns completing the half marathon in the identical time of 2.54.58. The previous Monday two of the Club’s runners were much further afield, at the iconic Boston Marathon. The worst weather for years saw a number of runners drop out with hypothermia & space blankets being issued before, rather than after the race. Mark Harriott recorded a superb PB of 3.12.00 while Tony Phillips, more affected by the weather than the world renowned heartbreak hill at 21 miles, had to settle for a personal worst time of 5hrs 8mins. On Sunday, 19th April Steve & Linda Tempest tackled the Ironbridge Half Marathon over a very undulating but almost traffic free course. Out of 572 runners Steve Tempest was pleased with his position and time of 264^th & 1.52.13. Linda, tackling the race on limited training, achieved 556^th place with a time of 2.37.07.