Race report by Dave Phillips.
Well what a shambles. Cathy Keay and I were down to do the Watford ½ marathon then due to those ******* stupid H&S things it was cancelled yesterday afternoon. No snow apparently but may be a bit slippery in parts. OMG.
So I decided to do the Stourbridge Stagger-a 10 mile XC event with trails, woods, small roads, fields, mud, water and everything else. No H&S there then thank heavens. So just before I was about to leave this morning I thought I’d check to see if those H&S idiots had intervened. Thankfully they have more sense BUT there were no entries on the day!!!
So now 2 nil down!
There was of course the Centurion Runners 5 miler at Chelmsley Wood so off I went and met the usual 6 red and whites who do this. Here you could enter on the day and run on the frozen lakeside course so well done Centurion.
So 122 (note!!) of us started on the 2+ lap course all around the parkland, lake and river and what a lovely sunny place it was too for a Sunday jog. Plus the usual wild fowl chatting away at us as we sped by.
I was lying towards the back of the pack and was about to overtake Diana when she started to walk and pulled out by the bridge that took her back to the start area. We had to go the long way round of course. Best of luck with that leg Diana.
Soon Marie Edmunds lapped me but I plodded on in my capacity as official sweeper-believe that if you want!
Then the finish line came into sight with not too many people there but it was “race over”.
The start and finish line is about ¾ of a mile from the college HQ and there is a tree by the start line when the runners hang their tops or plastic bags with stuff in them. When I got there all I could see was a solitarily plastic orange bag with my hoodie in it. Says it all I guess. But at least with the jog there and back it was almost a 7 miler.
So that’s 5 runs this year but need to get the distances up for marathon 500 at Stratford in April and by the way I’ve booked Cox’s Yard pub/restaurant by the river bridge for the party afterwards-all invited of course. More later.
Massey results:
18th Marie Edmunds 33.23 – Prize for 3rd lady.
86th Nikki Carter 43.40.
92nd Paul Curtis 44.44.
102 Sonia Karamat 46.56 PB so very well done!!!!
122 (NOTE above) David Phillips 66.57.
DNF Diana Wilson.
Next weekend XC and probably Cannock Chase XC 10 miler on Sun.