Four gentlemen & a young whippersnapper enjoy a morning by a lake
Confusion reigned at the starting line for the opening race of this seasons championship. What to wear? Some hardy types opted for the full summer- tri look with a skimpy tri-suit. Other, more seasoned campaigners went sensibly for multiple layers. It was cold, damp and a bitter wind was blowing that would even had Colin reaching for his Damart’s to put under his skirt.
Being the National age-group championship meant a high quality field and predictably the pace was high. The aforementioned young whippersnapper, aka Ashley, racing for TFN, zoomed off and wasn’t seen again by the four gents until after the race. I’d like to say that the seniors pace was measured and comfortable. However it wasn’t, the 10k was hard work, the 42k lap of the lake seemed to have acquired some extra uphill bits (I’m surprised we didn’t have to climb down a ladder to get into transition), and the final 5k was made much more difficult by the thick layer of treacle that had been poured over the run course.
The bitter end …
I arrived at the finish once again confused by people trying to force feed me High-5. Don’t they like me? Why would I want high-5 when I’ve finished? I want a cup of tea, not a specially formulated 2:1 ratio of burpene and fartose in a pleasant summer berry drink, thank you very much. Andy Crockford arrived at the finish confused by the lack cheering when he did his signature “Crockbot” (Andy- I think the crowd presumed you were trying to remove that High -5 gel wrapper I’d stuck to your head at the start) John Shelton-Smith confused the crowd by arriving at the finish wearing a pained expression and what appeared to be a ball of string on his head. This was actually a very high tech piece of running apparel for cold days called a “hat” You wait we’ll all be wearing them next year! So as not to buck the trend, Mick Fishwick arrived looking very confused. “What am I doing here? Who am I?” His daughter fed him tea until he recovered.
So all in all we had a great time (and we’ve got championship points and you haven’t Mr Chairman) Ashley came really high up and the rest of us didn’t. Result! See you at Clumber.
Jonny Fitton
