Well done to all those who achieved PBs at what I assume was a pretty windswept Andy Reading 10k. Simon gets ever closer to the magic 40 minute barrier - just hope he's entered the Bourton 10k.
Your joker is played in this race if not before in the year, but this only applied to Arthur today.
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A number of debutants in the various events made for an improved showing by ERR in the second round of this competition.
Particular highlights were the Greg/Lesley/Theo 'trandem', and Jess's fur coat.
The Eynsham Ladies 'A' team finished 4th in Division 2 on the day, and are now 6th overall.
The Eynsham Men's 'A' team lie 7th in their Division 2, after finishing 7th on the day, although a lot closer to the competition than before. It just shows we need our best runners to turn out next time (so no more christmas market trips, Mr Tyrrell).
There were 156 finishers in the ladies' race, and 238 in the men's.
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Hope everyone enjoyed the woods, sorry I couldn't be there with you. Despite a couple of late withdrawals, I think this is the most runners we have had for this event.
The jokers are as reported to me, and any gaps in points are due to people not being in the 'right' league, or not being club members (yet).
Update (31/12): Nicola won the wine, and her report follows the results.
Short Race Results:
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Long Race Results:
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Breakfast run at Wytham woods
My first timed event since joining Eynsham Road Runners, my first Eynsham 10k just weeks away and I've been following Ian's training plan for the 10k, for which we'd done some tempo training the day before. So it's fair to say that I left my house slightly nervous of the scheduled 'easy' run that Ian had timed to fit with the breakfast run. A cold but beautiful morning calmed my nerves slightly and meeting the other runners changed those concerns to anticipation of what doing the Wytham Woods run would be like..
Setting off it was a very cautious start, running along the toll bridge path single file with traffic whizzing past. Follow this with that 'infamous' climb up into the woods and I was beginning to wonder what possessed me to leave my lovely warm house that morning. But then, with a right turn at the top of the hill I was transported into the most amazing scenery - dappled light, bright blue skies and autumn leaves...wow, what a place to run!!!
Seeing the marshal at the half way mark was a relief but also an incentive....knowing the hills were behind me and that I was really enjoying, rather than enduring, the run gave me the extra encouragement to relax and up the pace a little. The return journey just seemed to fly and soon the Talbot was in sight again, and I finished just shy of 55 minutes. I was left in awe of the joint 6 mile winners Jonathan Marks and Sarah Kerswell, finishing in 41.42 minutes and the 9 mile winner Robert Storey in 49.43 and of the marshals giving up their time to make sure this event happened.
I also found myself wanting to immediately plan for my next chance to do this run.....think it's safe to say I now know about a 'runners high' and have definitely caught the bug....thanks everyone!
Conditions improved from horrendous for the junior races to just about bearable, though very muddy, by the time the men raced. Unfortunately, Robert's marshalling stint had left him with frostbite (or something similar), and unable to run.
There were 153 finishers in the women's race, and 275 in the men's.
The ERR ladies are 8th in Division 2 and the men are 7th in their Division 2.
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Well done to Denise for a PB, another club record and an FB (see below), to Nigel and Steve for their PBs, to Ben for completing a marathon with practically no training, and to me for, er, finishing in one piece.
Thanks again to our wonderful roving pack of supporters, and to Lesley for setting up the ERR feeding station outside her house.
Unfortunately Robert suffered a fall on the lap of the track at the start, and eventually had to pull out at about 16 miles.
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A decent long league turnout for what proved to be a very pleasant wander around the lanes of North Hampshire.
Well done to Robert, Denise and Kate for winning their categories.
Nice to see Lesley returning to action, even wearing her WAG shades, and even if it was because she thought it was in Tackley.
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Another decidedly limited ERR turnout for a Blenheim race (must make a note for next year's fixtures), which at least meant an excellent time for John to play his joker.
Rachel and Claire weren't in club colours, so a belated welcome back to the jobsworth hat.
John won the wine (again), which Jane may or may not have drunk. Anyway, his report follows the results.
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Another pretty small ERR turnout at Woodstock meant that it was certainly a joker day if you hadn't already played it.
Well done to Jacky and Kate for winning their categories. As is traditional at Woodstock, I won the wine, so you can blame me for the report.
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I normally have to remind people that along with winning the wine comes the additional ‘prize’ of writing the race report, so it’s a bit embarrassing to remember that my name was drawn out after the Woodstock 12. This is a repeat of events 2 years ago, although bearing in mind the number of ERR runners who ran the event, it’s not such a coincidence.
On the day, event organiser Mike Shipway asked me beforehand if Eynsham were ‘out in force’. Errr… not exactly; there were 7 of us present, including cross country specialist Keith Baker, and random race-chooser Nik Roberts. Steve Butler was using the event for Abingdon Marathon training, as were Denise and I, hence his running back after the race, and our running to Blenheim beforehand. This meant that most of us weren’t exactly running it as a race. Among those that were, Kate won another Kate award, and Jacky won the ladies’ V45 prize, with exactly the same time as the second-placed finisher. Nice to see that all that practising of the dip finish paid off.
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Or 'what we did on our holidays', at least from a running point of view.
Firstly, Nick Sheard completed the 100km '7 Valleys' (and quite a few hills) Challenge in 16 hours 47 minutes and 18 seconds. If he describes an event as 'brutal' then it must be pretty tough.
While he was doing that, some of us were running the 10k, and the results are below. To be honest, it was a bit downhill, but the PBs should stand, so why not the club record?
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Then, on Sunday, some of took part in the marathon relay, which consisted of 3 legs of 10k, and 1 of 12k to finish it off. 18 teams took part, and we understand that the first 2 to finish were Polish national squads (well, it makes the 3rd place look impressive).
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Remember this? The various issues with the results have been sorted out, so here they are from an ERR perspective. Any remaining problems, please let me know.
Well done to Kate for winning her series and to Jacky for being 2nd LV45 for the series.
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