Medmenham 10 Results
A smallish ERR turnout for a scenic 10-miler with some surprising hills. Well done to Robert and Jacky for finishing so high up in their categories, although I don’t think any prizes were awarded.
Adrian made a late decision to run and was rewarded with the bottle of wine, so his report follows the results.
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This was’t a short league race and as I haven’t done a 10 mile race for at least 10 years, I hadn’t planned on doing it. But as Jacky was going, I thought I’d go a long and perhaps do the 3.5 miles provided I could still enter on the day and if not I’d sit in the car and read the paper.
So when we got there and they were still taking entries I went to the desk to register for the 3.5 mile race, but as this was going to cost me the same as the 10 mile race (£15 on the day) I thought I would get more value for money doing the 10 miles. As it was they only charged me £10 so I kept my mouth shut and paid up, thinking £1/mile not bad. Having been issued with my race number as 105 (which coincidentally happens to be an Alfa Romeo Engine Type – quite fast), I took this to be a lucky omen. As you can see from the ERR results this wasn’t an overly supported race, only 8 Eynsham RR, but the organisers had got all the gadgets, maybe the race being in a very affluent part of the UK had something to do with it. So having scrunched up my number (the dimple effect) as per our Club Champ (Robert) and having fixed my chip, I prepared myself for the “off” and after some pre-race preparations, I returned to find they were half way through the race briefing and were being shown how to identify arrows and in particular which ones were the correct arrows to follow. As I was unlikely to find myself in the position of leading the race, I didn’t take a lot of notice. Having followed instructions to make sure we all ran over the mat (which was only about 6ft wide) at the start to ensure we got a “chip” result, we then proceeded down the road towards the River Thames, passing some very nice properties. We were cheered on by the crew of some early morning cruisers as we ran along the side of the river towards Henley and I could just about make out Robert at the front before we turned right into a maize field. At this point I wished I had taken more notice about the arrows as you couldn’t see above it and immediately started to think about Millet’s Farm and the Labyrinth. It didn’t help when a lady appeared shouting “Lola”, I wasn’t sure whether she was calling her dog or “a show girl”! The course then went diagonally across a ploughed field, which is a sure way of slowing you down and if that wasn’t enough we had to watch out for the electric fence. Once across the Henley/Marlow road we headed up a very steep slippery narrow track into the Chilterns. There was a feeling of “deja vu” as I remembered stopping here with a group of Eynsham walkers earlier in the year and thinking – maps, compass, arrows and keep to the back, so I was in the right place. From then on it was fantastic, lovely sunny day with great views and scenery all the way down to Hambledon. I went on to have one of my best races of the year and was still feeling great at the end with an exceptional time (for me). Made even better by winning the wine draw, which I am now about to consume. So this turned out to be a real bargain – race and a bottle of wine for a tenner. Cheers. Really liked this race, so it would get my vote for being on next year’s race agenda.
