Some of the longer serving club members refer to this event as the Dysart Dash 10k but I have only ever known it as the Ranelagh Richmond 10k. Being part of the Surrey Athletics Road League it also incorporated the Surrey 10k Championship and like all other road league events the entry fee was kept to a minimum, with everyone involved in the race being a volunteer and any profit made going directly back into the organising club.
The course start and finish were close together with the race HQ being the Ham and Kew Football Association clubhouse. It’s a nice, flat and some would say a pretty course partly along the Thames Towpath and partly through some residential roads. It’s quite a clubby event and I would have thought that apart from us others were using the event for their own club 10k championship also. Although I didn’t like the usual grass start and finish the rest of the 1½ km start and finish wide road stretch had a really good surface and enabled runners to get into their stride early on before turning right, for two laps, towards Teddington Lock and then left once it reaches the river where I imagined it could get a little crowded for some runners and other path users. However, a nice bit of shade took us down the familiar path past the YMCA Hawker Centre before we doubled back up on the Lower Ham Road to pass the other side of the Hawker Centre where Binkie, Neil and dog, were stationed supporting us once again with their usual style of verbal encouragement before we did a little loop off of Dukes Avenue before heading back for the final stretch of road and the finish line.
As usual with running at the back of the pack I have no idea how the race up front went nor do I know if any club member won any of the prizes on offer so my apologies there but hopefully someone will put something on the website about that aspect of the day. The mug souvenir for finishing the event was the same as last year and it was very nice to receive a few words of encouragement from Richard and Cass and hopefully we will see Cass running with the club again this year. I attempted a screen grab of the results but unfortunately I’m not able to paste them into this document. Perhaps someone else can take publication of the results on as I’m off to a funeral shortly.
So next weekend we have the Endure 24 to look forward to and then it’s the Claygate Country 5M, Elmore 7M and Elmbridge 10k all of which are in July. Claygate is the same day as the World Cup Final, Elmbridge is another Surrey road league event, and on the same day as the Club BBQ, whilst Elmore is the day before the BBQ and runs in conjunction with the Chipstead Village Fair and Flower Show with all proceeds going to charity. As far as I’m personally concerned I would rather support these type of events, put on by local running clubs/organisations, than someone wanting to charge £48 for running similar distances whilst making a donation to a charity before retaining the rest of the profits made.