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April 2014
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Round Norfolk Relay 2014
The Round Norfolk Relay is a 17 stage 24 hour relay race which loosely follows the Norfolk boundary starting and finishing in Kings Lynn, and is one of the highlights of the racing calendar in East Anglia, if not the world. This year's race will be held on 20/21 September, and C&C have secured two entries this year. As well as mustering 34 fit and healthy runners, we'll also need volunteers to help with support throughout the weekend. So if you are keen on participating and/or volunteering please ink the dates in your diary and email John Ferguson with your intent.
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Ickworth 10k Hoohaah
I've written a race report for this one. C&C had a Grand Day Out here coming away with the team prizes and with David Barber's hard-worked third overall individual prize. There are trophies and everything.
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Kevin Henry 5k series - Race 1
It's that time again and as reigning champions it will be great to see a fantastic turnout for the first 5k race of the Kevin Henry Series, hosted by Cambridge Triathlon Club at Impington on Thursday 8th May. The race starts at 7:30pm and you have to wear your C&C official running vest to enter, just turn up around 7pm. Although our website says minimum age is 16, the league is trialling minimum age of 14 this year. You don't need to be super speedy to get involved as every runner scores a point. Impington is a quick course, so could be a great start to a summer of speed. We had some fantastic turnouts last year, so all welcome! If you are not running at the moment, come along and support. It would also be great to get an extra scorer if possible. Just drop me an email if you can help on chris@hirky.wanadoo.co.uk. We normally have a quick drink after the race too, so join us afterwards. Instructions are attached below. See you there!
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Ickworth House 10k
Double booked myself so one place up for grabs for the 10k at Ickworth House (Bury St Edmunds) this Sunday. http://hoohaah.co.uk/2014-hoohaah-events/ickworth-house-5k-10k-run/ Male winner last year: 38:32 Ladies winner 43:59 so potentially some easy silverware to grab for the club. Any takers?
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London Easter 10k
On a beautiful Easter Monday three C&C runners went down to London to run a 10k in Regents Park. Three laps on a relatively flat course had to be run. With around 400 finishers especially the last lap got tough. All of us finished in the top 20, Tillmann Ruland 38:49 min (13th), Mark Williams 39:59 min (18th) and our "guest runner" Alessandro Porcelli 40:38 min (20th) http://niceworkevents.blogspot.co.uk
Even so none of us has been running with the club for more than a year, we all agreed that practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays has helped us to improve substantially.
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What better way...
...to recover from the London marathon than to run another one!
On Good Friday Darren and I headed over to Caldecotte Lake for the low-key, friendly, traffic-free, 7 and a bit lap Bletchley Enigma marathon. Despite the dull ache of London still in our legs we both had stonking runs, with Darren completing the event only a minute outside his PB from the weekend before, having indulged in some experimental tactics such as wearing mostly new kit and setting off at sub 3:15 pace just to see how long he could hang on for... I added 10 minutes to my London time to finish less than a minute outside the magic 3:15 barrier, good enough to take the ladies title.
And since there is no better to way to recover from a marathon than to do another, we completed the triple and earnt our chocolate eggs and hot cross buns on Easter Sunday by completing another multi-lapper, this time 12 circuits of an offroad twisty turny bumpy course at Delapre Abbey's Northampton Festival of Running. Darren just missed out on sub 3:30 and silverware after taking a nasty tumble to finish 4th (white club vest now ruined!), and I scraped under 3:30 to take 2nd in the ladies race.
Tackling the half marathon was Jen Richardson, who completed the tough course just outside 2 hours.
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Victoria Park 5
A quieter weekend in East London, but there was a handy 27:25 (and 86.19% WAVA rating) for Ben Baldelli in a quality field at the Victoria Park five-miler - good enough for 20th place and second Vet.
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C&C On Tour in Scotland
There is a nice half marathon in Haddington which co-incides with the start of the Edinburgh Festival and Fringe. The race is on Saturday afternoon, 9 August. The early plan is to go up on Friday, the day after the Kedington round of the Kevin Henry 5k series, do the race on Saturday, have a night of silliness on Saturday and then travel home again on Sunday.
The race itself is great. It's very scenic, undulating with a couple of soddish but blessedly brief climbs and is overall quite quick. The weather can be warm. The course is a slightly more extreme version of the St Neots HM one.
The race is inexpensive at £15 and we can share transport to Scotland to keep costs down. Edinburgh during Festival time is not cheap but staying in East Lothian ought to be more affordable.
I've been checking the interest on Facebook and I thought I'd mention it here and at training on the next couple of Tuesdays. Please email me or post if you are interested or find me at training. I did the race back in 2011 and loved it. I can recommend it.
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Vienna Marathon
Cool tour of Vienna. A lot of people on the course (42,000), though the majority were doing a four-part relay or half marathon. After an unusual waltz music warm-up and a mildly confusing start (they stagger starting blocks by 10 min intervals), it was a great run in cool conditions with a handy bit of drizzle to make it feel like home. The course was fairly flat, there was plenty of space and mercifully few cobblestones along the way. I managed to pace the gf to a finish under 4 hours with a bit to spare (second attempt after a messy last 10k in the Budapest marathon last year). Schnitzel and beer recovery diet went down a treat. Overall a great day out - highly recommended.
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London Marathon
Over a brief, shining hour in Limehouse yesterday, I watched two of the greatest track champions of my lifetime, my heroes, bidding to seal immortality over the most famous of distances. In the end, Mo and Tirunesh fell short of the world's unrealistic expectations, so what chance for the plucky amateurs from the famous Wilberforce Road? Not much if we're talking superstardom (though almost all did beat Haile), but all kinds of local heroism was there for the taking, and the achievers, the nearlys and the blown-apart shufflers did their bit in humbling style again. We were posted at 20½, always a good place to pick out those going strongly from the thousand-yard-starers and the sweaty grimacers in mid blow-up, and universally all would be pinned up on my bedroom wall if there were posters of them in print and I were eleven. Full results are in (thanks Charlie; any others may add themselves or ask me), so I won't read the full roll of honour, but the best always deserve an extra mention. First of us down The Mall was Tom Stevens, lent to his first-claim club for the day, breaking the legendary 2½ hours by over a minute for a new PB. Wonderful. Charlie Wartnaby's 2:39 was another in a series of magical marathons for him, and Matt Slater showed steely determination to claim a 2:51 PB. Matt led in a talented bunch of sub-three chaps; kudos to Graeme Kennedy (2:53), Dan Hurst (2:54), Neil White (2:56), Paul Makowski (2:56 PB) and John Ferguson (2:59).
In the women's race, there was a proper epic involving Katie Samuelson and Claire Somerton; in-form and super-fast Claire went out at a killer sub-3 pace, having to stand tall through all kinds of torture late-on for her 3:10 PB; Ultra Katie, as hard as nails and strong as an ox, possibly an ox made of nails, fought out a textbook evenly-high-paced 3:05 for another PB, hauling in Claire in the letter stages and claiming C&C honours. Exciting just watching the 5K splits come in - we're looking forward to seeing who breaks three first. Izzie Pettit's excellent 3:36 PB rounded out the girls' top 3.
As I say, more heroism than I have room to mention - simply congratulations to everyone, and I hope you achieved your goals.
Photos starting to come in - do please add your own.
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Parkrun news
Parkrunning rarely makes the headlines here, which means some proper heroics get missed. However, Mary Holmes' sheer brilliance needs to be recognised. Mary ran today's event at Milton in 26:15, giving her a WAVA rating of 95.81 percent. Not just national class - proper world class. Congratulations Mary.
And while we're running park, well done Nicky McBride for becoming our second winner of an Aussie one (emulating Jonathan E-P last year).
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Track and field taster evening - 1st May
On Thursday 1st May, the club committee would like to invite you to a “Track & Field taster evening” for endurance runners who would like to try out some track and field events.
We will have races over 100m, 400m and 1500m, plus Long-jump, shot and javelin and you can do as many or as few of the events as you wish.
Its open to all seniors and veterans, and if you fancy trying one of the events (or more) in one of the T&F leagues afterwards then you will be welcome. If you already do some track and field, come along and see how your performances are at the start of the season, try a shorter track event, or whatever you fancy.
The T&F league teams are always looking for additional athletes, so come and have a go on May 1st initially – you may surprise yourself – and at least you can have a private competition against some of your training partners.
The proposed schedule for the evening is:
6.25 register and collect a number (athletes bring your own safety pins if possible)
6.45 100m, Long-jump and Shot (those who want to do 100m do that, then go to the field events)
7.15 400m
7.30 Javelin
8.00 1500m
The judges will be able to show you the basics of the field events and we will have some T&F athletes around. On track we will have a proper starter and all races will be timed. At 100m and 400m you can either try a crouch start or do a standing start.
Come along and give it a try.
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Marathon Round-Up
A couple of marathons to update you on from last weekend, either side of the English Channel. Steve Cresswell and Katie Sherwood travelled to Paris; Katie continued her excellent form with a rapid 3:11 and a rather stunning fiftieth place overall, and Steve nailed a sub-4, 3:57 in fact. Back in Blightly, Ian Richardson and Katie Tween earned themselves sparkling new PBs at Brighton - Ian in 3:29 and Katie 4:23. Hard work and sheer determination pays off - congratulations all four.
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National Road Relays
The National Road Relays are, as you might expect, the absolute pinnacle of club achievement on the road; the event that all of us tarmac-pounders should aspire to. The anointed eighteen C&Cs made the pilgrimage to Sutton Park in Birmingham, and frankly flew round the twelve/six legs (men/women respectively) agains the best clubs in the country. Quickest of all was Kieran Wood - 36th of the 359 to do the shorter leg for the chaps; absolutely magnificent. Oliver Park shone over the longer distance, and Natalie Griffiths warmed up for her Cambourne win by clocking the 78th-best female time. The bottom line is that we measured up as 43rd club in the men's event and 34th in the women's - pretty impressive stuff, and well done everyone including coaches. I'd love a first-hand report, please, but we do have a set of cracking (though anonymous) pics in the gallery - follow the link.
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Cambridge Cambourne 10K
There's a rather massive pile of results from our own race over at Cambourne, and I suggest you have a good old browse if you haven't already. All kinds of excellent performances achieved, but I'll pick out a few for special praise and, frankly, worship. Highlight of the day has to be the awesome Natalie Griffiths' victory in the women's race, with a 40:11, but Helen Grant's V45 win, and eighth overall, was just as impressive. Congratulations both. In the male race, stars of the day were the Park brothers, with Oliver's 35:14 for third place edging out Ric's fifth-placed 36:30, drawing nostalgic comparisons with C&C's legendary Tuck brothers of yore. High-five to other high-placers Ashley Brown (14th), David Barber (15th), Durward Whitehead (17th) and Avril Monmont (12th). Finally, huge thanks to all who helped put on the occasion - it can't be done without volunteers, and Neil's team are heroes to a man and woman.
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Greater Manchester Marathon
A handful of C&Cers headed up north for the Greater Manchester Marathon, which at the sharp end saw Andi Jones finally triumph over Dave Norman in the famous local head-to-head. It was a good day out for us, despite the wind. Mike Salt came home in a fantastic time of 2:45, coming 2nd in the V40 age cat. Stewart Bond and I ran together at the same pace for most of the race, then both suffered from wheels coming off later, but both ended happy with a 3:12 PB for Stewart, 3:09 and 21st female for me. Bernie Shannon knocked a stonking 30 minutes off his PB for a 4:09 despite cramping up in the 2nd half. The switch-back sections of the course allowed for us all to shout encouragement as we went past each other! I'd definitely recommend this race - very well organised, plenty of pre-race toilets (get the priorities right!), and a large dose of northern friendliness from big crowds. Special mention to Rich Lyle who missed out on the race, being laid up with a virus - best wishes for a speedy recovery Rich.
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Post London Marathon social
After the London Marathon on Sunday 13th April, there will be a C&C social at The Porterhouse pub in Covent Garden. This is the same venue as last year and is approx. half a mile from the finish.
Hope to see all the runners and lots and lots spectators there for a well deserved post-race drink.
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Camb AA Road League 2014
The Cambs AA Road League has started. It consists of 8 road races around the county in 2014. Your five best performances count for the individual competition. The team prize is decided by the top seven team results. Next race Eye 10k on 11 May. First race was a disaster so let's see if we can do better in Eye. Andrew
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