The Leatherhead Fire Station Charity 10km is a lovely little race. It is organised and marshalled by the firefighters of Leatherhead and the proceeds go to their charity. It isn’t flashy. There weren’t enough toilets. There aren’t enough marshals out there. And yet everyone who does it loves it. Almost all of the runners were from local running clubs. The course is beautiful but tough. It goes up for the first 4km, down for 2km and is then flat for 4 kms. There are some rather busy road crossings to navigate (Henry would have loved it) and the course is slightly short of 10km. Yet, it is a lovely run route. The scenery is beautiful, even along the A24, and with only 208 finishers, there is no congestion throughout the course. The cakes afterwards are delicous and worth queuing for.
We had 20 club members racing, and many had done the cross country the day before (extra well done for those). The race itself was won in 36:06 and finishing 3rd overall was Max Riley-Gould (37:34), followed by Paul Donohoe (38:03) in 4th. Paul Turkington was 9th (39:05) and Rob Buckle was 12th (39:45). Joe Chang was 14th (40:22) and Rich Hook was 21st (42:07). Paul Keddie finished 36th (44:30) with David Twaite trying to catch in 37th (44:35). Andrew Eames came in 41st (45:22) followed by our first lady back in 52nd, Jo Buckle (46:29). John Sweeney was 53rd (46:52) being chased down by Tom Hook (46:53). In 63rd place was Rike Jones (48:28) followed by Jacqueline Chang in 81st (50:49). Sue Garnish was 87th (51:52) and Bob Dean was 89th (51:57). Laura Twomey finished 91st (52:08) running with Caroline Dawson (52:08). Sophie Cooke is back from illness finishing 96th (52:51) and bringing us home was Paul Wallis (55:27).
The 10km Championship winners are: Max Riley-Gould, Paul Donohoe and Rob Buckle and Laura Twomey, Rike Jones and Jo Buckle.
Leading the Grand Prix tables after race 7 are:
Past the Post: Rike Jones/Richard Hook and Joe Chang ( joint 1st)
Age Graded: Caroline Dawson/David Twaite
With 5 events left, there it is all to play for!
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