Marathon, half marathon, 10k and 5k events.
The official start for the marathon was 1000 hrs with the others starting at intervals just after. As I am a very considerate person and I didn’t want to keep the officials hanging around too much, I opted for a 0800 hrs start with another chap from Reading (as last year in my case). Thanks Tracey from Raceways.
The full is an 8 lapper with a small one to start with. So you travel up and down, round and round, back and forth on the same runways and side roads time after time after time. In my case the 1st 3+ laps were on my own ‘till the 1000 hrs start when at last I was with loads of other runners from the other events.
After one lap you feel that you know every inch of the course because you can see most of it from almost any place on the course. But to be fair to Raceways they said that they had made the course more interesting this year by “doing it clockwise for a change”. Trust me when you run round a very flat air field where you can see in all directions with nothing there from one side to the other, then whichever way you run round it the boredom is the same but in reverse.
They gave us elastic bands (8 in my case) so at the end of each lap you ditched one. I seemed to have been out there for ages and still had 4 bands left on my wrist. Ughh more torture but at least it was “warm, dry and flat torture”.
Inevitably my pace slowed as numerous runners from all events cris crossed all over the place until by about 1230 there were mainly the marathoners left (about 60 started and 10 dropped out with boredom) so it was a bit lonely.
Steve Damms lapped me a couple of times so there was company at least for a minute or two! Thanks Steve.
The other Massey runners shouted us on from the side lines so thanks to you lot.
Finally the end was in sight where medals, drink containers, bananas, biscuits and snack bars galore greeted us.
And to top a good day I won a large Easter egg for being “the most senior competitor” in the marathon. Read into that what you will.
The Raceways Team are a fantastic lot and put on loads of events so look at their site on www.raceways.eu and lets go to their events.
Massey results.
Marathon:
Steve Damms 3.53
Dave Phillips 5.32
Half marathon:
Rachel brock 1.59
10k:
Jamie Turner 42.15
Lesley Keighley 58.05
Kelvin Elliot 63.19
Race report by Dave Phillips.