The Helen Windsor 10k

Wednesday 7th July

A breezy night in Stainland saw the turnout of 8 Senior members of Spenborough for the Helen Windsor 10k.

An impressive 200 local runners lined up, also having to juggle between the cycle race flying round at what seemed 40mph.

Kevin "the race machine" Ogden flying the flag for Spenborough at what seemed 41mph finished in a very respectable 3rd place (35 mins) having to compete with a host of top runners that turned up, including the likes of Pierson, Crowther and Whitworth!

Gerrad Skippins was second home in an excellent 14th postition in 38 mins 56 secs. Gerrad is going from strength to strength right now. Keep it up!

Oliver Carter 49th back, third home in 44.20, but refused all samples of a drugs test after this impressive time and knocking 6 1/2 mins from last year. Keep off the ale.

Vet 60 Graham Walsh in 60th place was next for Spen in 45.44.

Mick Howard 69th in 46.26.

Emma Maguire - first female vet 40 back in a smashing time of 47.33 coming home in 77th.

Jackie Carter 50.59, nearly 3 mins slower than last year in 109th, followed by Liz Bottomley in 54.27 which she is she is slight dissapointed with but has had back problems, or so she says ;)

Taking in to account this isn't a PB course and it was a little breezy we can all knock 4 mins off our times.

Joe Percy 10k results

You need windows 2007 to be able to view these results. It won't let me copy and paste them into this :-( and I can't work out how to put an attachment into this blog! So here's spen results typed in manually:-

2nd place - Kev - 34.24
8th place - Tony Bradford - 36.17
21st place - Tony Bradford again! could this be Gerard? 37.33?
27th place - Dan Stuart - 38.36
102nd place - Richard Lee - 43.58
117th place - Mick Howard - 45.21
143rd place - Graham Walsh - 47.06
149th place - Emma Maguire - 47.29
156th place - Alan Whittaker - 48.04
184th place - Donna Winterbottom - 50.14
193rd place - Jackie Carter - 51.22
210th place - Hazel Pike - 53.12
215th place - Elizabeth Bottomley - 53.26
218th place - Suzanne Plimley - 53.46
257th place - Amanda Pearson - 61.27

269 ran the race in total

Pudsey 10k

Not one for a PB

After success at Ingleborough, my colleagues at work persuaded me to do this one. Never done it before so hey, why not?

I know the course well due to early years of horses, then MTB combined with training over this area with the great Jamie Warburton. Therefore I knew what to expect. I was surprised that I was the only spen runner at the start (where were the ever present race machines??).

Anyway I did OK with 43.53 which got me 41st out of 400 and only a minute or so behind Karen Pickles.

The results are here

http://www.ukresults.net/2009/pudsey10k.html


Oh and I got stung by a wasp in the face. My face is now numb down one half and apparently I can do a really good Geoff Boycott impression!

Ingleborough 2009

Then there were 4

After the magnificent Spen turnout in 2008 is was a surprise that there were only 4 out this year. I wasn't feeling very fit but it's become a yearly ritual now. Weather was ideal although I was mindful of the heavy rain that we had had.

I started steady and as usual tried to run as far as possible before breaking into the walk, I was amazed that I was still running at the 'Les's rivine'. At this point I was right with Frank and was careful not to pass him. As we reached the walking point (the first steep and Frank's tradition best bit) he started to pull away. I tried to keep a high cadence but Franks strength began to tell.

At the top though (which is always further away than you remember) Frank was only 45s ahead so I knew he was in my pocket! As the descent started it was at least as treacherous as usual. Wet and slippy at the top. I passed Frank as soon as we got onto the rocky track and had a fast run down. Finished in 1.03 which was pleasing. Frank was 2 mins back. Skip Donahue has finised a minute or so before me and Chris King came in with a PB of 1.10

http://www.fellrunner.org.uk/results/race09/09_ingleborough.html

Bring on 2010

The John Carr (Esholt 5k) series race 3

Having done the previous two I was not looking forward to tonight,

1. feeling very tired, noisy neighbours having a heated debate in the middle of the night
2. I lost my number,
3. queueing traffic.

Normally I get faster at each race, but tonight I wasn't so optimistic but two friends from Pudsey Pacer's made me think otherwise. Gunning for me, they were along-side from the start. Not liking this, I put in a burst and was at the first k in 3.40 nearly half a minute up on last week, though between 3 and 4 k I found I was slowing down (not by choice). As we turned the bend at the top it was rather nice to have some encouragement from the crowd watching, thanks to all for that because I passed three ladies, all this to beat last week by one second, ah well the mars bar was good. The bag ! I've now got five of these, and no the Pudsey girls didn't catch me, this time.

Spen Results
17  Kevin Ogden          M35 16.34
21  Antony Bradford      M40 16:42
74  Gareth Patchett      M45 18.40
87  John Henry           M50 19.15
93  Victor Kolodziejczyk M50 19.31
155 Emma Maguire         F40 21.47
177 Jackie Carter        F45 22.57
207 Les Fenton           M55 24.15
275 Amanda Pearson       F40 29.36

Selected Others
39  Karen Pickles  Pudsey Pacers      F35 17.45

Full Results

Askern 10K - chasing the elusive sub-40

It would be nice to be sitting here writing about how I'd smashed my 10k PB and finally achieved a sub-40, but it was not to be. As a runner, you've got to accept that not everything always works out as you want it to, and it would be quite boring if it did. Goals that are too easily achieved are not worth much.

It's been 3 years since I last ran a 10k. It was 2006, and Askern was my last real effort at chasing a sub-40 time. 3 weeks after I narrowly missed out with a 40:05 at Rothwell, so whilst my form was good, I had another go. However, it didn't work out, and I missed by some margin with 41:01.

But now it's 2009, and I'm 3 years older which can't help, but on the flip-side, I've been running well all year, setting course PB's at a number of fell races, and a few people helped convince me to give a road 10k another shot. I've done very little road training, and only got back into track training at the start of the year after a long layoff. I confess, I had doubts about my ability to achieve the sustained pace I would need to break the 40 minute barrier.

The weather was better than in 2006 when it was pouring rain, tonight it was cool and overcast, but I soon worked up a sweat. I clocked my km splits (then stupidly erased them later) 3;33, 4:09, 3:55, 4:07 - all over the place! I think it was dodgy markers, as I can't have been that wildly out. At 5km I was probably under 20 minutes, although not enough. 5-6km comes the hill, and I clocked 4:27 for that one, wiping out the seconds I had in the bag from the first km. 6-7 should have been fast, but I only clocked 4:00 dead, I needed to get some back there. After that I pretty much ignored my watch and just concentrated on giving it my best effort. In the last km I was tiring, and finally crossed the line in 40:42 (unofficial).

So what can I learn? A lot I think! I've come back from a 3 year road running layoff, and with no specific training, run my 3rd fastest 10km ever, plus I beat my previous best for this course by almost 20 seconds. I think it shows me I'm in pretty good shape, and convinced me that I can break the 40-min barrier.

After the race, I rushed back to Spen and just made it in time for my 1500 debut at the track, but that's another story.

Spen Results
108 Chris Jones M45 40:41

512 runners

click here for full results

Esholt 5K #2 Results

Plenty of Spen runners in action again, and improved times for almost everyone over last week. A good battle between Kevin & Antony up near the front, and John & Gareth swapping the honours this week a bit further back.

Antony has done a write up:
Chasing Pavements: Esholt 5k - Stay In Sight Of Blue And White

Spen Results
12  Kevin Ogden          M35 16.31
13  Antony Bradford      M40 16:32
30  Keith McGhie         M45 17.32
61  John Henry           M50 18.54
62  Gareth Patchett      M45 18.56
85  Victor Kolodziejczyk M50 19.54
147 Emma Maguire         F40 22.04
170 Jackie Carter        F45 22.54
266 Amanda Pearson       F40 30.02

Selected Others
34  Karen Pickles  Pudsey Pacers      F35 17.40
114 Chloe Patchett Wakefield Harriers FO  20.45

Full Results

London Marathon Results

Well done to those Spenborough runners who took part in the London Marathon today.
The results listed are in time order and not in order of merit. Just to complete the course is an excellent achievement. Well done and all the best for speedy recovery. The results are;-

Kevin Ogden           2:47:37
David Lane            3:07:05
Edward Wilkinson      4:07:13
Elizabeth Bottomley   4:24:01
Hazel Pike            4:25:08
Jackie Carter         4:27:52
Meg Simpson           4:58:12

3 Peaks Results

Full results here