Shambles! Is that too harsh. I think not.
I had a call on Friday from Glenn Guzzo to say that the Speed Boat(Leftie) had sprung a leak(Achilles) and I was to fill in. And by the way you can lead off. Oh Hell.
So it was down to Scarborough Park at Ramsgate for the Cross Country Relays, which for the open male and female teams etc included 4 x 4ks of the park.
I didn't see any of the females running their races but I do know Kerryn McCann lead her team off and ran 13:14. Lucy Chapman running for the Striders open A team ran 14:02 I think running the 4th leg.
I was to be running with Bright Shoes, Easy Tiger, Royworlds and Guzzo in the other Striders male teams. Guaranteed for me to be the slowest first leg of that lot.
Over to the start which was about 60m up this park near a cricket oval with a game in progress in June?
The starter says: Run down the end of the park turn right across the little bridge across the canal which is about 5m. Turn right after crossing the bridge and do a little 60m loop and then go back down south away from the start and around the course. When you come back past the changeover area cross the bridge again and do the 60m loop again and then around the course to changeover with your 2nd runner. Easy right? Many people at the start queried the starter as apparently the females did not do this.
The start happened and the pack ran across the bridge only to see a marshall telling us to go left after the bridge. The guns, guzzo, paul arthur, sean williams etc all went right and so did I for a second before turning back and going the other way. It was half and half as to who went which way.
A bloody disgrace letting down all those good runners because of bad organisation.
As for my race I ran ok for the full 4ks and tried to keep it steady and not go too hard at the start. At one stage I was ahead of Guzzo. Thats never going to happen again. Tough wind conditions once we went around the aussie rules oval on the south end of the course. Managed to pick up a place right at the end spurred on Blue Dog and Bernie G yelling at me. I stopped the watch at 15:45 on but was given a time of 16:12. I badly tagged Vat and he was off like a shot. Sadly standing in the line to hand in my number all I eneded up seeing was half of our third ruuners lap(Tim Lindop) and both of O Runners laps. Guzzo was 2nd round the course after the bad start and his team finished 5th in the open A's.
I think our time ended up as 60:30. Not sure. I have no idea how my official time is 30 seconds out from my watch. Did they start the clock before the gun?
It was great to see the Striders all out racing. We had 5 male teams and 3 female teams.
And since I am posting this on Sunday and the results are out. The Striders 45+ male team won Gold. Two years in a row. The female open team won silver and the female 35+ won silver.
3 medals for 8 teams thats good.
Sorry long post. Had to paint the dodgy start which runners 2/3/4 didn't have to do.
3 comments:
Good lead out flake despite all the confusion!
I think I did about a 15:50 but screwed up starting and stopping the garmin royally.
Mate, I wouldn't be too concerned about the changeover - they're always tough. I thought it went alright, actually. Good honest effort after being called up at the last minute.
Bit of a shame about the start, though - it wasn't like the mens open was the first event.
You think they'd start the watch after the gun to make up for sending people the wrong way!
Well done Flakey.
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