The Beautiful Beast

The race and it’s selector lived up to expectations for some yesterday.

Of those of us who spent Saturday night in Swanage Niki had remained reasonably sober and  cooked us a fantastic meal to be rightly  rewarded with another fabulous performance yesterday.  Ian and I were a bit lost and bleary but that’s no excuse and now Ian has a better one.

At the race start with plenty of time  to chat of jogging round and enjoying it (yeah right -  like drinking too much we roll our eyes after  but do it again and again ).

Neil Grant and Gerry (sadly no Sue ) arrived with a car each before Vanessa’s little car pulled up packed with Harriers with excuses – only ex ex didn’t have one!  (Well strictly Dick didn’t give an excuse either).  James has been injured longer than he’s been born and Ivan is coming back after a sensible recovery period ( surely a spook?).  So Steve was backed as the winner.

So a que

for the porta loo (

 I preffer the hedge) then to the start line

where Rob Brown just made it on time.

 The sun was shining in a sky blue sky, the smell of salt and excitement in the air as we set off from Corfe Castle for a 13 mile run around the Dorset coast.

AC must have been proud as at the first bridge crossing an uninterrupted stream of Chepstow vests chose to get their feet wet.All was going well I could see quite a few Harriers and all looked happy and focused. 

Then six minutes in Ian put his foot in a rabbit hole, tore his calf and ran no more.  Commiserations Ian you were going well.

From this point Vanessa was flying, she was ahead of Dick and Niki, then Niki moved ahead and I didn’t see her again.  I heard that Steve and James were battling for first place in this first half while Ivan jogged around chatting to Niki.

– Mysteriously in that elite time zone where floating takes the place of effort so chatting is entirely possible –

ahead  of where the likes of AC, me, Dick, Gerry, Vanessa Neil and Rob Brown were stoically toiling in the sun.

Had a friendly word with Dick as I passed then Vanessa and I played a game of I’ll go ahead on the downs and you can go ahead on the ups for a few miles until nausea kicked in for her and I was forced to press on to play it with the brown, gleaming torso of AC.  I managed to slip by.

It was a great race (apart from the styles)  the scenery was beautiful and you were right in it.  It was wonderful when we reached the coast and after the second gruelling stairway to heaven it was mostly downhill with one soft sweeping grassy slope to fly down. 

It was a long way to go but well ‘worth it’ – a good choice Andy.  And seriously I did think it was unjust that you were DQ – it was hot and you did have your nuumber on.  But you can take it and you’re in the results so you get your points.

Well done everyone and thanks for letting me beat you this time Dick

Steve Harris 1:35

James Blore 1:42

Ivan Teed  1:48

Niki Morgan     1:51

Lou Summers  1:54

Dick Finch        1:54

Gerry Ashton  1:57

Andy Creber    2:00

Neil Grant        2:04

Vanessa Lawson   2:13

Rob Brown             2:31

This entry was posted on 07/09/2009 at 02:04 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.