Keep on running

As the London Marathon starts to loom on the horizon, we are now entering “peak” training season with March hosting many 10m’s, Halfs (Halves???), and longer-distance races used by Marathoners as preparation and gauges of progress. Several Heathsiders were out “pushing the envelope” at the early season events...

SRI-CHIMNOY SELF-TRANSCENDENCE 10M (Battersea Park, 28th February)

11th                   Ryan McCrickerd               00:57:50

23rd              Samuel Thompson             01:00:51

128th            Jessica Vinluan                 01:25:49

156 finishers.

GARMIN “RACE YOUR PACE” HALF-MARATHON (Eton Dorney, Saturday 28th February)

From the race website: “This annual half marathon gives runners of mixed abilities the opportunity to focus on perfecting their pace per mile, using a mix of technology and pacers to prevent the age old problem of peaking too soon.”

29th              Philip Hogg                      01:26:08     

491 finishers

VITALITY BATH HALF-MARATHON (Sunday 1st March)

No participant race report available at time of posting, so I have “borrowed”, and edited, the following from the race website’s report:  “Runners and spectators filled the streets of Bath in record numbers for the 2015 Vitality Bath Half Marathon, now in its 34th year. Nearly 13,000 runners pounded the streets of Bath for a multitude of different reasons, from those striving to achieve a personal or charity challenge, to elite athletes aiming for a new course record.

Over 30,000 people came to support the close to 12,000 runners taking part in the Vitality Bath Half and almost 1,000 runners who took part in the Family Fun-Run. New records were set at this year’s event, with the British stealing the show in the elite field, taking first place in the men’s and women’s races. For the first time in 12 years, a British male took the top spot, with Paul Martelletti finishing the 13.1 mile course in 01:05:28. Paul said: “I struggled on the second lap and the wind was quite strong and that didn’t help, but the crowd were so supportive throughout and really spurred me on to the finish.”  In the women’s race, Emma Stepto took first place in 01:13:50 and is the first British female to win the race since 2010. Emma said: “It wasn’t far off my PB, but I’m training for the London Marathon at the moment which is a lot of mileage so I wasn’t expecting a PB. I wanted to have a training run to see what form I was in, and wasn’t expecting to win.”

Amongst the 13,000 runners were celebrities; comedian Russell Howard, Radio 1 DJ Greg James and Made in Chelsea “star” Ashley James, all running in aid of charity. A young woman who ran the Bath Half Marathon with a giant, cloth “breast” strapped to her back said the prop was a great conversation-starter during the race: Becca Langton, 27, ran the 13.1-mile race wearing the big boob in support of breast cancer charity CoppaFeel. The massive mammary was packed with balloons, so it squeaked as well as jiggled as she ran, gaining her lots of attention as she pounded the streets...”

79th              George Stewart                 01:16:59

96th              Dan Madams                    01:17:52

976th            Emerson Paul                   01:33:32

4995th          Monika Thaler                    01:59:16

11,588 finishers                        

BERKHAMPSTED  HALF-MARATHON (Sunday 1st March)

Gareth Marshall writes: “A small, but perfectly formed, quintet of Heathsiders turned out for an early Spring Half at Berkhamsted. Robert was taking part in what is now his local event and Louisa was competing in the race for the 5th time. Enjoying bright sunshine and near perfect running conditions, the course stuck to country roads and very much lived up to its description of 'undulating', with one particularly arduous hill wiping the smile off my face 3 miles in, and several smaller inclines that seemed to go on for an indecently long time! Not to be cowed by the gradients, we all ended up having decent runs and the relatively forgiving last 2 miles allowed me to dip under my PB (think Andrew may have done so as well), while Caroline finished 3rd and Robert 16th in their respective age categories.”

43rd              Gareth Marshall                1:28:01

86th              Andrew Prystawsky           1:32:50

211th             Robert Bowler                   1:40:33

244th            Louisa Pointon                  1:41:29

367th            Caroline White                  1:47:22

1,010 finishers.

GREENWICH MERIDIAN 10KM (Sunday 1st March)

The race, organised by Cambridge Harriers, takes place in Greenwich Park on a traffic-free course. This was the 16th edition, and congratulations to Adam for achieving a podium place!

3rd               Adam Kirk-Smith               00:35:19     

364 finishers

REGENTS PARK WINTER 10KM SERIES - Race 6 (Sunday 1st March)

This was the last race in the Winter series - the Summer series of first-Sunday-of-the month 10km’s start on April 5th (visit “http://www.regentsparkraces.org/” for details)

44th              Harvey Vaknin                   00:40:27

63rd              Cas Wright                       00:42:13

508 finishers

PARKRUN: All Heathsiders’ parkrun results for Saturday 28th February can be found at:

http://www.parkrun.com/results/consolidatedclub/?clubNum=2017&eventdate=2015-02-28