9 hardy athletes braved the cold morning start at the Hastings Centenary Marathon. James and Loz flew off at the start with 'push it till I die' race strategies. Judging by their inability to walk afterwards they squeezed every ounce of performance out of tired muscles to finish in 3h10m and 3h13m respectively - both PBs.
There were 2 other mini-races going on. Jon, Rob and Steve have always been quite evenly matched. Steve is well known for his late pace in marathons so the race strategy for Jon was to break him if he could, while Rob held on for as long as possible. I can vouch for the fact that Jon gave it everything, pulling away at 17miles, being caught and passed by 20miles, but popping up again on Steve's shoulder at 22miles, before Steve's marginally less tired legs gave him a 40 second edge by the finish. Steve finished in 3h19m, Jon 3h20m (PB) and Rob 3h26m (PB).
The other mini-race was Rachel and Tamsin, who finished 2 minutes apart without realising how close the other was. Final times were Tamsin 3h49m (PB) and Rachel 3h51m (PB), both real quality times, only just outside the automatic qualifying times for London but on a significantly hilly course. Lucy also gained a PB with a time just outside 4hrs, and then tried to convince us all that she hadn't really trained for the race. What could she do if she did train ??
The special mention of the day has to go to Dave Lashbrook. After giving exclusive TV interviews - bigging up the club! - he started the race with a dodgy knee, which gave up on him at about 15miles. This left just a modest 11 mile stroll back to the finish, after his support team provided a change of clothes. He still finished comfortably under 5 hours, without any fuss. And a PB. What a legend!!!
And finally - the mens team (First 4 scoring) came 5th out of 57 teams - a remarkable achievement.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
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