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Well done Travs. I like Warley Woods. Good on the Masseys. Been a while. Betley had similar conditions to the Birmingham League. The course was pretty much the same, slightly longer, so although I was 18 secs slower, my pace was slightly quicker with 6.10 min miling this time. I was 4th vet and 27th overall and got vet team gold with W&B. Most of the medals and races were won by Stoke, Tipton and W&B.
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Well done Gaz on your own performance and that of Wolves&Bilston...
I notice the strong Midlands clubs are fairly well divided through the counties.... so ours in Warwickshire is almost a shoot-out between ourselves and Birchfield.
Worcester AC seem to dominate their county champs obviously.
Staffs yourself and Stoke.
Maybe wrong but Tipton seem to fair worst as they seem to have runners split across Warks/Worcs/Staffs.
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The usual mudbath at Shipley Park. Managed 47th O/A in Derbyshire XC Champs and first home for our clubs V55 cat Bronze medal. Not bad as 3 of us over 60!
Dan Haworth was Derbyshire champion.
It wasn't just the course that caused runners problems with the sloppy stuff. The row of 10 portaloos were not positioned on level ground and were leaning a few degrees beyond 90 which,with even the most vigorous pumping of the handle,gravity could not be defied.
I shall say no more!
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Back to the bread-and-butter of the league tomorrow, at Abington Park in Northampton. A course which I really enjoyed last year, despite many of my clubmates describing it as a "boring" course, I think it's an interesting one.
Missing one or two of our usual scorers, so hopefully our strength in depth will come through... I may even have a chance of scoring for the 'b' team if my legs loosen up a little before 2-30pm tomorrow!
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Tough day at today’s league fixture... some very greasy conditions in a couple of places, and a ferocious wind at times.... as our Somalian speedster exclaimed to me “thizz is real crozz countree yezz!”
Word from the officials was that times were 2-3 minutes down on last year.... the winner was 2 down, and I was almost 4 minutes down.
As to the race itself, still feeling somewhat heavy legged, although better than last week. Middle two laps were incredibly laboured, redeemed myself slightly on the final lap by reeling a few in, but finished 204th in 43mins for a very tough 10km. Similar to last week, felt again like I am a good minute, perhaps even a bit more, from where I feel I should be.
Team-wise, with a depleted team (borne out by the fact that despite my poor run, I still managed to score in the ‘b’ team) we were 9th on the day and have dropped to 7th overall with a fixture to go. Think we’ll pull ourselves back up to 6th on the final fixture, but our chance of 5th is possibly gone.
Hello to GazB, nice to see you on the start line.... smashed me again, by 4mins.... congratulations on being 3rd scorer for Wolves&Bilston...
Onto the Midlands in a fortnight... I heard that last time it was at Loughborough there was a mistake in setting the course and the advertised 12km was actually 15km.... which might make things interesting...!
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Thanks Travs. It was unusually muddy today - probably the worst in 21 years that I've been going there. Nevermind the wind! I ran poorly. Well down on the December fixture. Our team had a shocker - too many young uns missing. Ah well, onto the Midlands and the last one for us both.
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Yes, see you at Loughborough...
I may sit out the final league at Leamington... Long Mynd Valleys the next day where I want a pb.... will see how strong our team is looking.
I recall at Northampton last year a bit of start-line chaos when you wiped out one of the fence-markers in the first hundred yards.... I had similar today.... as you know I started on the far left next to the funnel, got my hand/arm caught in the tape and pulled a significant part of the start fence along for about 50 yards before freeing myself...!
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RRegional CHamps tomorrow.
Camp Hill Estate near Bedale for the Northerns.
Parbold Hall Loughborough for MIdlands I believe.
And I assume the usual Parli Hill for the Southerns.
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Prestwold Hall, Loughborough!
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I missed the Midlands unfortunately feeling a little under the weather, but hopefully back for the Nationals in Nottingham...!