Edinburgh Marathon Festival

On 30th May I took part in both the 10k & 5k events at the above festival.

Both races were in Holyrood Park in Edinburgh and both to my dismay took the runners to the highest road point around Arthur's Seat. This meant that the first 2.5 to 3.0k of each race was a climb upwards to the tune of about 100 meters, and on both races I did resort to walking small stretches of this long drag. The bonus of such long climbs is that there was plenty of downhills in which to recover some time. 

Both races were well supported and enjoyable.

Results as follows:

10k race - 628th out of 2,361 finishers in 55:23

5k race - 173rd out of 834 finishers in 27:41

I also entered the half marathon event on Sunday 31st but an 8am start and no early trains from my Dunfermline address would have meant a 5.45am start to catch 6.30am park & ride service to get to the start in time so I took the decision to have a lay-in instead. 

Les  

London BUPA 10K - 25.05.15

On bank holiday Monday Pete, Sian and I made our way to Cockfosters tube station and then onto Green Park to take part in the above event for the third or fourth consecutive year.

As usual we were very lucky with the weather with it being dry and pleasant, and ideal for running. Given that there was 12,000 runners taking part virtually everything was well thought out and executed really well. Except that is the toilets in that there was an insufficient number resulting in massive queues. 

The route changed this year starting on The Mall and finishing on Spur Road opposite Buckingham Palace. Runners follow a clockwise route around the City of Westminster and the City of London. It passed many of London’s famous sights including Admiralty Arch, Nelson’s Column, St Paul’s Cathedral, Mansion House, the Bank of England, the Old Bailey, Somerset House, Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. Spectators line the whole route.

Our results were:

Les Potts   3,498th in 51:50 1:04 slower than 2014

Pete Jones   4,997th in 55:28 - 3:44 quicker than 2014

Sian Jones   11,222nd in 1:19:56 - 5:54 quicker than 2014

A great medal, decent t-shirt etc etc made the goodie bag very acceptable.

Les

British 10K - 25.05.15

Hi Folks

On Monday 25th June Sian, Les and I ventured down into Green Park to do the London Bupa 10,000 run. We had all done the event before and have enjoyed it so much before we keep coming back.

The weather was ideal and the crowd and bands around the route were great.

Les was the winner from our group in a time of 51 minutes.  I managed to beat last years time by nearly 4 minutes and finished in 55 minutes. Sian also beat her 2014 time by nearly 6 minutes completing the run in 1 hour 19 minutes.

A nice goody bag, T shirt and Medal were provided so it was definitely worth the trip!

Pete Jones

A picture from earlier

Here is a belated addition to the report from the Silverstone Half Marathon in March that I have only recently been sent. This is the before race shot on what was a surprisingly cold and windy day. 

From the left it shows me (Chris - in Simon Cowell high waistband mode), Les, Liam, Fiona and Pete.

For results and the race report please look at the entry from March 2015.

Bedford Parkrun - 30-06-15

It was left to Ellen and I to uphold FlitwickTri's honour at the Bedford Parkrun this weekend and we were part of a very large turnout of 331 runners.

Ellen's progression continued and she managed to run all the way round this time without any need for me to revert to Evil Coach mode.

Our results were:

Ellen Wright                241st in 31.11
Chris Wright                242nd in 31.12 

Bedford Priory Triathlon - 24 May 2015

I entered the Bedford Priory sprint triathlon on Sunday which consisted of a 750m swim at Priory Country Park, a 21.4k cycle round a fairly familiar route through Cardington, Old Warden, Northill & Cople and a 5k run twice round the lake.

It was a bit of a disaster to be honest. I don’t know exactly what went wrong but I seemed to have forgotten how to swim and had to take regular breaks and alternate with breaststroke for a while. After only 100 metres I had my first thought of retiring; a thought which recurred a few times throughout the next hour and a half. 

The small field quickly got so far ahead that I had some difficulty following the right way and I was actually the very last one out of the lake. I then had a fairly lonely bike ride although I was overtaken by the leading contenders in the middle distance triathlon who had first swam 1900 metres. 

By the run I had lost motivation although I don’t think I could have gone a lot quicker anyway. I was quite surprised to finish as high as I did (17th out of 24 - top 20, best triathlon placing!!) –  though I suspect that a couple of those I finished ahead of took a wrong turn on the bike leg because I don’t recall overtaking as many as 7 after the swim. 

My overall time was 1:39:11 (22.41 swim!, 45.16 bike, 28.31 run + 2.42 transition). Bit more swimming practice needed before the next one I think.

Steve

Westminster Mile - 24th May 2015

Liam Ko and I (and our lovely Serbian colleague) took part in the Westminster Mile on Sunday 24th May as part of the Milton Keynes Sweatshop Running Community.

The race was a 1 mile dash around St James Park starting on The Mall and finishing outside Buckingham Palace. The event was well planned out with a series of races throughout the day.  The volunteers and supporters were all first class.

Our times were:

Liam Ko                                6:38   459th out of 2,167

Les Potts                              7:15   641st

Lovely Serbian Colleague    7:57   1,074th      

Whilst a long way to go for such a short race the combination of live music all day, lunch provided by Sweatshop, and the great weather gave this event a real festival atmosphere and was really enjoyable, and a must do in 2016.

Les