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Wednesday, December 14, 2011

The Three Puddings

Apologies for the delay EtU. I wrote the draft report 2 days ago but have been waiting for the results to be published. They're not on the usual sites but eventually I've tracked them down to the Northernrunningguide website. Apologies also, for any superfluous line spacing. The editor doesn't seem to take kindly to draft reports where the images have been moved around. Anyway here it is.

Last Sunday EtU and I ran(that may be an exaggeration) in the Longridge 7 Mile race. There's a lot of uphill involved, at least 4 miles, all at the beginning, with the rest of the course a mix of flat and downhill. Because of the climbing, an unpleasant sensation, I'm totally unsuited to the race, but I do have an affinity with Christmas Pud. We get on well.

The race starts from Longridge Civic Hall where after about 300 yards(I've not turned metric yet, but I will do for the sake of the youngsters in the group)you climb up out of Longridge before starting the long ascent of Jeffrey hill. Fairly soon Jeffrey was taking it's toll on me and I was being passed by everything on two legs. Runners, mothers with prams, old ladies with walking sticks, old men with zimmer frames, two-legged dogs, even one-legged cats! In short, anything that moved. After a couple of miles there was a short stretch of descent and I started overtaking. This is a novel experience for me and in the euphoria that followed I began overtaking on the climb! Should a National Holiday be declared? Eventually I caught up with EtU who, when we got to the top of Jeff announced his intention to attend to toilet duties, in that cultured manner that we have come to know and (love?).

For quite a while he had been running alongside one of his many aquaintances(oohma) who, once we hit the level, opened up a considerable gap on me. However I managed to reduce this when we started on the descent. "Come on, only a mile to go and all downhill", cried an encouraging marshal. So naturally, we immediately hit a flat stretch of about 548.64 metres, passing the 9.656km marker about halfway along it. I'd given up hope of catching oohma but on a short piece of descent I produced a lightening burst of speed(about 4mph - back to imperial) to stagger past him, and managed to hold him off on the level run-in to the finish.

There were 233 runners and Andy Norman of Altrincham won the race in 37.50. Glyn Kay of Horwich was 2nd in 41.21. I was 174th in 1.03.34 beating oohma by 2 seconds. EtU was 182nd in 1.04.42.

So having beaten his companion would I have beaten EtU had he not had a pit-stop? I don't think so. The time difference was too small apart from which, he can dig as deep as anybody. Had he not been an Accountant he would undoubtably have been a miner.

Here are a few piccies.