Chedworth 10 - Club Champs
From Ivan
For all of us lucky enough to make the April edition of the club champs it all began by waking up to snow in Chepstow – as we all know that doesn’t happen very often and normally means there must be a ‘shed load’ of snow everywhere else! However for once this wasn’t the case, and what there was melted quickly… aaah.
On a personal front I wasn’t running but was happy to dish out advice along the lines of ‘you won’t need many layers, you’ll heat up running!! – no thermals required. Although after walking over to the hall and back to the car – I along with many others were changing thier opinions on this. Except as ever for Lou who stripped off to the customary crop top ready for the start.
Meanwhile – I got my bike out of the car ready for a nice easy cycle to strategic locations to spectate and take photos.
Race started at 11.00 – pretty promptly I believe, first vantage point was at the end of the first road section (after ~1k), by which point the field was spread enough so that cornering appeared pretty accident free. No surprises that Martin came through at this point as the leading harrier – closely followed by ‘Satnav Mark’ and all of the usual suspects thereafter, Sam and Lou had already begun what would become a battle of downhill vs. uphill speed which would change frequently throughout the 10 miles.
Next point was the first road crossing of the race, by which point Satnav had pulled something out of the bag and snuck past Martin (suffering from a chest infection I believe) with Matthew Stott chasing them down, Steve.H with Matthew.L closely in pursuit. Lou had pulled ahead of Sam, Pete.H chasing Becky.M, Gerry.A pushing hard to stay in front of Sue.A (carrying an injury I believe – sorry Gerry) with further battles still going in the field, Dave.A closely pursuing Geoff.B with I believe Jenni & Vanessa close behind. (Sorry Jenni for one reason or another totally failed to get any pictures). Oh and of course Grubby and Aunty Mary were having a great battle of wills!
Another road crossing – just after the first (I think) proper hill, steep (and long as I have been told – didn’t look very long to me on the OS map!) – Grubby & Matthew I know you’ll be saying they weren’t hills – mere inclines! Everyone was looking a bit slower at this point but looking forward (if they were aware) to a long downhill section through woodland. Titanic battle … – Sam had forged her way past Lou on the uphill section and reached the road just in front, this must have changed once again in the following downhill.
Then they had a good long downhill section – which must have been pretty quick as I didn’t quite have time to get to the next point to see the leading Chepstow runners passing through the ‘river’ crossing (ok it’s not what we’d normally call a river – living by the Severn & the Wye). I guess the photo’s will speak for themselves at this stage. I believe this was probably at about the 6/7 mile mark with a few more hills en route back towards the finish.
All in all a great day and good performances all over and enjoyed by most (I think), as ever the women out performed the men picking up prizes in SL 2nd (Sam.M), FV35 1st (Becky.M), FV40 1st (Louisa.S), FV50 2nd (Sue.A), FV55 2nd (Jane.B) and the Women’s team prize. The Mens team were as ever well represented by Syd picking up MV70 1st, and despite the lack of other individual placings managed to secure the team prize as well.
Link to Results
Link to Ivan’s Pictures
This entry was posted on 06/04/2008 at 10:42 pm and is filed under Championship, Races. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.
