One Minute of Glory

Yesterday I ran my first race in over a month, the delay caused by other commitments and some flu-like bug picked up a week before Christmas. 95% recovered and already having put my name to run in the Greater Manchester Cross Country Champs, I arrived around 20 minutes before the start to pick up my number from Steve P, eventually finding other Horwich runners, so we had enough for a team with a few to spare (only 4 to count). Boggart Hole Clough can get a little muddy but this year it pulled out the stops - a proper mudbath for three laps.
I had a reasonable run but not as good as the officials thought. Just after finishing, they announced the results - I was the silver medallist. Wonderful, I thought, but then I thought I had better correct them otherwise Nick Leigh might get a bit dischuffed, having lapped me near the end of lap 2. We had the right numbers - no cock-up on our part - they'd just read 360 as 366 on Nick's vest. Oh well it's not been a bad year though, a gold team medal in the Mid-Lancs, first sub 45 10k in 15 years and my first big mountain ultra completed.
The results look like I had a crap race : fifth from last but after analysis it was ok. My last race at Liverpool was the fastest I had run for 15 years and I finished 45·4% behind the winner (of the Mid Lancs results). Yesterday I finished 51·9% behind Chris so not much worse really, especially as Liverpool was perfect conditions for me. At last year's SE Lancs race as Boggart Hole, I was 63·5% behind the winner. It was very odd that there was no long tail for this race as the women's race was far more spread out. It was good to see Andy making his debut and he did very well, finishing in 52 minutes, only 9 minutes behind Chris who was the runaway winner. A very good day for Horwich, with gold, siver and team gold.
For the mathematically minded amongst us, I have drawn box plots that compare yesterday's results for Greater Manchester (men's and women's), Lancashire Men's Champs, and the Mid Lancs at Sefton Park in Liverpool. The times show the range from first to last.