The third race in the series took place over the traditional course at Monks Kirby, with 49 runners taking part. Without the problems from last year when part of the course was closed by police the only slight concern was that for the first time we had no marshals out on the course to help the runners cross the busy road but thankfully everyone got round without incident. It’s also great to see many of our new members coming along to take part in the series with the result that a third of the field were running this course for the first time.
First over the line was Clare Taylor who crossed the line in 46:00 just over a minute ahead of Jon Dowds who followed up his 3rd place at Brinklow with run with another good run to finish second in 38:16. Jon took the prize for first place in the handicap race as Clare was running as a guest. In third place was Karen Winchester who completed the course in 50:41. The fastest run came from Andrejs Blakounovs who was taking part in his first handicap race, Andrejs finished in 27:22 with Pete Fahy (31:19) and Jamie Richards (31:26) making up the top three.
Looking back through the records to this race 20 years ago, the biggest difference is the number of runners. In 1995 there were a total of 29 taking part, this included 4 guests. The other noticeable difference however is the times although the quickest time of 27:44 compares well with the Andrejs’ time there were another 4 runners back in 1995 who completed the course in less than 30 minutes. Ben Orme finished in 29:10 which gave him 3rd over the line and 4th quickest time of the day. The other current members who took part in that are Bob Carey who crossed the line 4th in 31:47, 6th place went to Mick Petch in 34:38 and Paul Bergin was 9th in 29:51.
The next race in this year’s handicap series is on 16th July starting at 7:00pm on the old railway line at Birdingbury once again parking is limited so please share cars if possible.
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