NVAC 10K - 14th August 2011

A typical healthy Swinton turnout of 15 runners attended the NVAC 10K as this was the latest leg of the Central Lancs Grand Prix season and club championship. On a cool blustery day we huddled at the start to perform the usual pre-race ritual that is……… standing around and having a chat.

This was rudely interrupted by a guy with a gun and so 130 runners set off to discover the delight that is Bispham sea front.

The course is run completely on the promenade and we set off northwards towards Fleetwood, after a mile we turned and headed back south passing the start. Around the 4 mile point, we turned again back north to the finish. So in summary, that’s 1 mile straight, 3 miles straight and then 2 miles straight.

The only thing that made the race slightly interesting was that we had to negotiate about 200 fishermen who had kindly created a bit of an obstacle course in scattering fishing tackle all over the path. I was just thinking that I couldn’t imagine anything worse than standing on Blackpool seafront in the freezing cold all day, they must be mad, but to be fair, I wonder what they thought of the fat, red faced bloke in bright red top that was plodding along about 20 minutes after the race leader?

My race followed its usual pattern of settling near the back and staying there. I found it tough going as my legs were heavy from a Parkrun the previous day (same as Paul and Rebecca) and also the sea breeze was getting stronger. To make matters worse, I seemed to manage the clever trick of maintaining a 20 yard gap to the runner in front and also behind, so the whole race was just like a solo training run.

You would think that a promenade should be fairly flat but as usual, they managed to find a deceptive longish upward hill and of course, that was around the 5 mile point.

Swinton's elite, (Mark, Steve and Tony) had a close fought battle at the front as they all finished within 5 seconds of each other. The Men’s A team finished 6TH whilst the ladies team finished in 7th place.  I was quite pleased with my 53mins 13 sec finish but will be picking other races in future, if I want to try and beat my 10K personal best.

The overall club championship results make interesting reading after 8 events. Paul Rutherford leads and just needs 1 more race to reach the qualifying minimum of 9 events. Steve Hart is almost there as he needs a couple more.

I trust that Steve will have included the latest standings in this newsletter as you will notice that I am currently 4th in the standings. Does that perhaps indicate that I am a far better runner than say the person that is languishing 25th in the standings (a certain Mr P Summers)???? 

Dave Williamson