St Giles, Gate Gallop 10k

Onwards and upwards!!!!
The sun continues to blaze and, together with a rutted, off road course, contributed to relatively slow 10k times but what didn’t change were the Club’s runners at the sharp end of the field in Sunday’s St Giles Hospice, Gate Gallop. Most prominent were Alun Thomas (chip time 36:43) and Jennie Laing (42:39) who stormed to brilliant victories in the men’s and women’s races and to Ellie Evans (44:03 and 3^rd place) and Kelly Knight (47:21 and 8^th place) who, together with Jennie, won the women’s team prize and to Rob Eaton (40:49 and 13^th place), Andy Hawtin (49:56 and 14^th place) and Rich Miller who supported Alun in clinching the men’s team prize. The race, the latest leg in this year’s Burton and District Summer League, was also prominent in the number of really tight inter-club battles that could only be separated by chip times. One such battle was between Andy Hawtin and Rich Miller who were given identical ‘gun to tape’ times but Rich recorded a 40:55 chip time. Rich also recorded an excellent 2^nd place finish in the really competitive MV50 category. The reliable John Morgan (41:04) was next across the line before another of those tight inter-club battles involved Mark Harriott (41:25) and Stuart Halsey (41:24) with chip time’s again reversing actual finishing positions. Chris Hanman (44:21) edged out Romain Chambard (44:26), Men’s Club Captain Andy Orme (45:07) and a resurgent James Gough (45:48) before Andy Lindley (46:00), Colin Mee (46:12) and Steve Leafe (46:26) all gave everything in the energy sapping conditions. For Colin his run also secured a highly creditable 2^nd place in the MV60 category. The quickly improving Katie Dennis (49:11) again ran well before Tracey Glover (49:29) won the inter-family battle with husband Paul (49:41). Andy Meadows (49:34), Barry Saunders (50:10), the returning Nikki Reeves (50:17) and Chris Elsegood (50:38) finished in close order before Ross Ballinger (52:46), James Cobb (52:42), Kev Clarke (53:56) and Karen Wilks (57:31) gave everything to the cause. Rolling back the years, Steve Tempest (58:41) was next followed by John Pegg (59:29) and Becky Atkins (59:48) all running well to duck under the hour with daughter Emily (66:29) gamely securing 3^rd place in the women’s U20 category. Emma Sharp (76:39), Pauline Cooper (79:16), Cath Johnson (79:20), Kat Smith (79:39), Linda Tempest (83:46) and the resilient Helen Clarke (87:08) all gave their usual maximum effort in completing the finishers for the Club.