A fortnight ago it was time for the Signals Relays held again
at Hetton Lyons Country Park. It’s a blue riband of an event, a bit of a wafery
biscuit so to speak. A lemon puffer. Club runners only. Whose who of the
Region. Teams of 4 to count each with a leg twice around the lake, a smaller
version than Strathclyde Park I imagine. I managed to infiltrate the A v50 team
and was on 3rd leg. I was likely to be the slowest in our team. We
won a bronze last year when I got around in 13min:16sec. Its usually North
Shields Poly aka Guy Bracken who win (he’s worth 2 minutes on the time of a
mere club runner) and we battle it out with Sunderland Harriers. This year we
had a good team, but Bracken was jogging around, making his slight stature and
build felt during the warm ups. He was
off 3rd. That’s nice, I thought. I wondered how much time he’d take
out of me. After we were 3rd in the first leg, Phil W. moved us out into
the lead and as he arrived I set off. I got round the first lap without being caught
but halfway round the second lap I heard the pitter, patter of a 9 stone runner
and the boy moved past with ease. At the finish I had lost 2 minutes to him,
but were weren’t too far away and Tim M recovered some time, but we were still
30 seconds adrift of first place. However, that meant we had second place, so a
very respectable performance and a wee bitty silverware. Last Wednesday
I did a 16 miler round the lanes, but got home wrecked. I was that tired I put
myself to bed on Thursday evening for a couple of hours rather than train. Friday was no better. The
Saturday trip to Alnwick which was hosting the final north east cross country
came after a 2 hour karate sesh and I knew early on I was tired, so plodded
round without conviction for a 200th or something finish. The lurgy
soon made itself known and so this week I have been spluttering around the
workplace with no running to speak of. It was only on Friday that I jogged a 4
miler and then again yesterday another 4 miler. That said it was pretty prompt
(28mins), and so today after an evening of wining, whining and dining, I’m of
with the youngster for a steady 9 miles. Its Alloa next weekend, and if I can
get close to 1:30 or thereabouts, that’ll do nicely.
