A perfect day for racing, cool air but blue skies breaking out from behind the clouds. Neil picked me up early and dropped off Jeanette who was going for a long run with Lesley (they ran over 10 miles!). We arrived at Congleton High School (HQ) in plenty of time and as Neil wasn’t running he was able to indulge in a bacon butty while I made do with a coffee (thanks Neil).
It was great to catch up with many old friends and also meet some of our newer members. The chat as always was about understating expectations for the race, but everyone seemed in good cheer. I was definitely looking forward to it; I know that my running is okay at the moment and I shouldn’t have any problems getting round, but I haven’t done much speed/race work nor have I done any long runs.
This year was a new route, no longer running on the main roads of Congleton, it stays completely in the lanes, a much better and more interesting course in my view, but still challenging and finishes with it’s famous sting in the tail.
I had an okay run, finishing in 1:32:09 and second in my age group to Tom McGaff, so no complaints there. As a club we had 36 runners, Matt Smith led the men home in 1:16:09 and Katie Latham the women in 1:29:37, a pb and the first time under 90 minutes! We had 15 runners finish in under 90 minutes. My time also gave me over 80% in the club championships, unfortunately I won’t run enough races for it to matter. Results
