This isn’t Libby writing. This is Danny. I was asked five minutes ago by Libby to write a race report from this morning and I agreed. I don’t quite know where I’ll go with it. I have high expectation upon myself to make this entertaining, informative and a fair reflection on the happenings during this morning’s race. Then again I am also trying to watch ‘Morecambe and Wise: The Whole Story’ on BBC2 so I’m half paying attention to this report and that programme.
So, with that in mind, here’s my interpretation of how it all went at the Perivale 5…
The weather, well you know what the weather was like. I expect you all went out today or you have windows in your abode and unless you live in Australia (like Mr Pengelly) you’ll know it involved no rain and no wind. As for the temperature, it was cold enough to require a base layer under the club vest (for me anyway) but no cold enough for gloves. I have no idea of the celsius at 10am today. I’m sure BBC Weather could tell you.
From our club there were six male members (or twelve for those of you with a dirty mind) and six female members from our club pushing ourselves with leggy gusto around the course all seeking Grand Prix points, VMLM Ballot requirements or just a general race time over 8.05km.
If I were to pick out the pros and cons of the race, (lets starts with the cons – get the grumps out the way), I’d have to say that the first mile being squozen onto paths away from the road battling past people who started way, way, way above their station and thereby creating mini-bottlenecks was not particularly without it’s aggravation. A potential resolution would be to have people start in line with their predicted finish times, but this is a small suggested improvement and I don’t know why I’m writing this here as this isn’t Runners World and it won’t be seen by the Race Director. Feel blessed you just read that opinion of mine, but it has no real value. In fact I could just delete what I wrote but I’d rather just write some more here about wanting to delete it and waffling on so much about wanting to delete it rather than actually do it that you are now thinking, please, just get on with it, meanwhile I’ll keep tapping the keys laughing at myself that I’ve just ‘trolled’ you this far. Seriously though, that was the only real notable negative. The only other mini-minuses were the ‘straight-to-recycling’ leaflets in the race memento in the form of a draw string bag, and said draw string bag splitting this afternoon when I put some shopping in it.
Now the positives! It is a fast, flat, 2 lap course all on tarmac or path. It was very well marshaled, mile markers were bang on and very visible, it has a nice track finish, the Race HQ was warm and had plenty of room to change in the changing rooms, plus they have lockers (take a pound coin, thanks to John Sweeney for providing the 26.2 RRC locker for the morning) and plenty of toilets. They have a ‘Race the Santa’ now, a male and female Santa that you have to finish ahead of according to the race details posted to you but apparently you have to finish either side of by five places (as announced in the race brief) to get a Christmas treat. I have no idea what the treat given was, to whom and how, I couldn’t hang around as Chauffeur Steve Ramek had to be in Marlow in the afternoon. Thanks to Steve for a lift on behalf of myself, Libby and Kirstie. The male Santa was a swift chap, probably finishing in the top five. The lady Santa ran around 34 minutes. They had plenty of water, bananas and apples at the finish. That’s all I can think of now in terms of pros – it was conventional well done race fare by the organisers, no point me straining to think of other positives, I’ll just end up writing and writing for the sake of it again and making you wish I’d just stop typing and hit the full stop key instead of any combination of the 26 Latin letters we use in the English language. There, there you go, a full stop… there’s three! An exclamation mark! I’m spoiling you here. I just realised there are as many letters in the Latin alphabet as there are miles in a marathon. What a boring fact.
Anyway, to sign off, there’s always one memorable moment that sticks in your head which you’ll always remember from the race and for why you never quite know… the dog poo in a dog poo bag on lap one (pre-two mile mark) that then had a trainer footprint on lap two.
Those who ran are listed below, everyone seemed happy and thanks to Kevin Parker for cycling over and cheering us on. Same again next year? Yeah, I’d say so if possible.
Oh, and bring me fun, bring me sunshine, bring me love.
1 25:29
24 29:52 Danny Norman
48 31:47 Steve Ramek
66 32:36 Moustafa Fawzy
99 34:30 John Sweeney
104 34:42 Libby Marchant
132 36:19 Dan Hookey
176 38:58 Kirstie Mitchell
181 39:11 Sarah Pettefer
252 43:13 Karen Hardy
253 43:13 Mike Gray
258 43:27 Jo Newstead
273 44:16 Kate Hancock
349 64:48