Busy, busy, busy!!
It was one of the busiest Sunday’s of the season for the Club with racing action on three fronts and those not running helping to stage the first race in this year’s Burton and District Summer Road Racing League at Conkers. In almost perfect running conditions it was an excellent start to the season for the Club with both men’s and women’s teams finishing on top of the pile. It was a particularly solid performance from the Club’s women with Jenny Laing, after leading for most of the deceptively challenging 5 miles, finishing 2nd in 31:29, Louise Insley, stopping the clock in an excellent 34:17 for 3rd and Christina Hawtin running well for 4th in 35:02. While it was frustrating for Jenny to lose out close to the finish she had the satisfaction of knowing it took a distance PB from Peel’s Emma Pick to take the spoils. Great team support was also provided by triathlete Lisa Wright in 37:59, the improving Hazel O’Brien in 39:12 and a promising debut from Katarina Compton, who stopped the clock in 40:47. Becky Lenaghan, Mary Sharp, Anna Casey and Pauline Cooper also figured prominently as they recorded 45:41, 51:14, 53:06 and 54:26 respectively.
Men’s Club Captain Andy Orme did well in getting a strong men’s team on the start line with Chris Pearson, James Farmer and Rob Eaton packing brilliantly in 5th, 6th and 7th places in times of 28:48, 29:14 and 29:49 respectively. Stuart Halsey was next in a well-run 31:17 for 15th with relative newcomer Nathan Holmes gaining more valuable racing experience in recording 32:19. Seeing the benefit of an unbroken run of training, Matt Clemson recorded 32:31 with Nathan Fagan crossing the line in 25th place in 33:20. Chris Elsegood, another who is working hard to improve, finished in 36:53 with James Cobb and Paul Hudson next home in 38:08 and 39:01. Three of the Club’s most experienced athletes Gary Price, David Lunn and the evergreen Tony Phillips, gave their usual maximum effort in completing the Club’s finishers in the men’s race in very respectable times of 41:45, 44:13 and 45:14.
For 12 of the Club’s runners it was the culmination of hard post-Christmas training and for some, their first attempt at tackling the 26.2 miles of the marathon, with the first major British marathon of the spring in Manchester. Dave Clarke and Sam Bassett both managed to duck under the magical 3 hour benchmark with Dave recording 02:56:59 and Sam 02:59:32. However, there was mixed emotions from the duo with Dave slightly disappointed with his time and Sam extremely happy to achieve his goal. Ben Holmes ran well for his chip time of 03:09:45 with Tim Rhodes, on home territory, one of a number to overcome the usual mix of illness and injury, to achieve a distance PB of 03:27:45. Ultra-distance specialist Andy Windle recorded 03:30:51 with Paul Glover and Romain Chambard close on 03:38:20 and 03:39:32 respectively. Tracey Glover and Barry Saunders also finished relatively closely on 03:47:25 and 03:49:25. Marathon debutant Katie Dennis did brilliantly to finish in 03:54:50 as did Andy Meadows and John Pegg as they recorded 04:03:10 and 04:48:58.
There was a much different challenge on offer in the Derby 10k but for a number of the Club’s runners the challenge was accepted with PB performances. This was particularly the case with Ross Clarke and Ross Ballinger who were elated to record distance PBs of 37:53 and 45:08 respectively. Lizi Hunt and Holly Holland ran superbly in recording 46:17 and 47:52 with super vet Graham Blackshaw stopping the clock in 53:54 and Philip Hughes in 63:09 completing the Club’s finishers on a very busy running day
