HRRL Salisbury 10-miler and three marathons
HRRL Salisbury 10-miler
The sunny spell continued for the eighth of this season’s Hampshire Road League races, the scenic Salisbury 10 miler. The sunny spring conditions continued and, though chilly before the start, it soon warmed up. Twenty-three Farnham Runners took on the challenge to consolidate the teams’ positions in the league.
There were twelve men in Farnham Runners vests to secure full A B and C teams, while the ladies fielded eleven runners so the C team just lacked one runner but the team still did well.
The ladies consolidated high positions in the leagues. Their A team came 5th in the top flight and they lie 5th of 10 clubs. Their B1 team came 4th and they lie 5th. The C team was also 4th, raising the overall C table position to 7th.
The men’s A1 team was 7th (lie 8th/10), the B1 team was 5th (lie10th) and the C team was 7th (lie 9th).
The first two men back both achieved personal best times. Joe Collins ran a splendid time of 58:49 and placed 16th overall over the undulating course and amazingly, as part of his training for the London marathon, continued to run another 10 miles, following the first half of the race route and back the same way. Joe Lee, after a long time off with injury was delighted to be back, with a time of 1:02:10.
New member Alex Elsey impressed with 1:02:07 (chip time), clocking the same gun time as Joe Lee. Nick Grist in 1:08:48 put in a strong performance as the fourth member of the A team.
Ivan Chunnett led the B team (1:09:11) followed by 5th M60 Keith Marshall (1:09:30), Colin Addison (1:13:10) and Charles Ashby (1:13:45). The C team consisted of Richard Denby (1:23:47), Chris Allen (1:27:07), Craig Tate-Grimes (1:38:49) and Howard Inns (1:40:29).
Linda Tyler, first F60 and in a new personal best time of 1:13:24, led in the ladies. Next in, Candy Waller (1:14 46) and Gemma Whitehouse (1:23:31) and Gill Iffland (1:23:48) also recorded new PBs.
Tori Shaw (1:27:55), Jane Georghiou (1:29:13, second F70), Kelly Lincoln (1:32:38) and Colette Grist (1:32:39) made up the B team, while Lizzie Collins (1:35:15), (Sandra Hickey (1:36:52), and Alison Lamb in her first ten miler (1:47:35) ran for the C team.
Three marathons…
It is already the season for marathons. In training for forthcoming ultra-distance races four Farnham Runners tackled the Big Feat Winter’s End off road marathon over the South Downs.
Ivan Chunnett commented that he had gone too fast because, on finding himself in second place overall early on, he felt compelled to continue and held on to his second place. He finished in a remarkable 4:24:08 over the challenging course while Colette Grist, Kate Townsend and Kelly Lincoln clocked 6 hours 15 minutes.
Three Farnham Runners chose to run the hilly Brighton Marathon. Mike Taylor has run all of them since the inaugural race in 2010 He recorded a time of 4:11:33, while Steve Bailey, after an injury curtailed his training, finished in 4:13:30 in his seventh marathon. After also sustaining an injury in training, Georgie Abrook, who has completed all the Abbott 6 Star World Marathon Majors, had to settle for 4:39:35 this time.
Last but not least Phoebe Thomas showed her potential in the Vienna Marathon. She paced sensibly and ran a “negative split” in this, her first marathon, recording a quicker time for the second half. Her time of 3:04:00 placed her 29th lady and ninth in the senior ladies’ category. Not only that, she was the first British lady home!