Sorry this is almost a week late, it's been a busy week recovering from the Jersey race (as in laying by the side of the pool). Never underestimate how challenging that type of recovery can be! I imagine many runners are absolutely hopeless at keeping still for long periods of time, I definitely fall into that category so being poolside sounds great. The reality is that it's interspersed with random walks around the hotel.
There's certainly plenty to catch up on and I got the feeling we had a strong American theme running through our events with races in York, Jersey and Newark. Hope you're sticking with me on that albeit the US link falls down a bit when you chuck Cambodia & Farndale into the mix.
Starting with the York 10K, the annual eyewateringly pricey charge around the city. Well done to everyone taking part for coughing up the fee in the first place, even better that one or two of you went on to deliver some outstanding performances.
Dom Carter came home in an impressive 28th place with a time of 35.53 with Jim Carter following next in 60th in 38.14. It must be hard running 10K in that time and still knowing that you're not even the fastest runner in your house! Great time regardless Jim.
Next up was Chris Bush in 44.10 closely followed by Bill Shively in 44.01. Yep, that's not a typo, Bill had a faster time than Chris but Mr Bush was clearly better placed on the start line and crossed the finish line 5 places ahead of our Bill.
Great to see Chris Thompson back out in Postal colours, finishing in 47.18 followed in by Harriet Sleight in 48.03 (another PB and not that long since Miss Sleight was bemoaning the fact she couldn't pace well enough to go sub 50). How times change! Donna Gold was next in 55.37, Paul & Gemma Rutter crossing the line together in 58.50. Last man home was Paul Hatfield in 1.07.54 ably supporting his wife Anna. Great to also see you back running with a Postal vest on your back Paul. Apologies if I've missed any 10K runners, I searched the results by club and I know it hasn't captured everyone.
Meanwhile in Newark we had the Coles, Elliot & Sophie taking on the local Half Marathon. A tough day out in the sunshine and I'm sure it's not your best HM Elliot but impressive nonetheless in 1.23.07. All our best goes to Sophie, it sounds like the sunshine got the better of you on this occasion. Hope you're resting up well and we will no doubt see you back soon.
To go completely off route now and for the first time ever, I've got a race in Asia to report on. We all know Lou Mamalis is spending a good amount of time enjoying the sights and sounds of Cambodia so probably no surprise that a Postal Harrier turned up on the entry list for the impressive sounding Khmer Empire Half Marathon. Sounds like something out of Star Wars.
Finishing in 2.21.50 probably only tells half the story as I'm guessing the humidity in that part of the world is something on a different scale than we are used to in Yorkshire. The photos look great Lou and I'm sure you're in first place for the best place to run this year.
Back in the centre of the universe, we had the latest event in the Hardmoors series of races at Hutton le Hole. We had Sam Lynn going in the 10K (ish) event at Farndale and he came home in a very respectable 8th place in 1.12.15. Plenty of undulating and ferns to deal with before you flat tarmac folk wonder how 1.12 got an 8th place!
Last but not least it was the Round the Rock event in Jersey. A simple matter of getting the hotel to have a 5am breakfast ready for you and then making sure the local taxi firm got you half an hour across the island to St Helier ready for a 6am start. All that went smoothly with the hard bit to follow. The route was simple enough, just follow the coastline all the way round the line and 46 ish miles later you'll be back in St Helier again. Job done.
All in all it was a brilliant event. A deceptive start with about 13 miles of flattish tarmac before the technical trails on the north coast kicked in and well and truly slowed me down. There weren't any big hills as such, just relentless small ups and downs that left my quads feeling slightly trashed. About 35 miles in I clocked an ice cream van on the west coast and joined the queue, hoping my fellow queuers would clock my running outfit and let me queue jump. Sadly they maintained their place and I stood there watching a few runners go by. Luckily I managed to catch them all up later and finish in just over 9 hours and 23rd place out of 130 ish starters.
Highly recommend it if you fancy visiting Jersey, it's a superb island the event itself has relay options as well for teams from 2-5.
Anyway, I think that's it for the last couple of weeks. Tomorrow onwards should be great for getting out running again. I don't know about the rest of you but the heat of the midday sun is a time for sitting with a beer in the garden, not chasing round Haxby on an interval session.
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