Andy Reading 10K, 11th December Lucy had another good run to finish 151st in 48:33, but things didn’t go so well for Martin. His calf muscle began to twinge early in the race and then pulled badly, so he was forced to slow right down and did well to finish (52:55, 216th). The race winners were Ian Kimpton (Luton, 30:29), and Helen Mulhall (Bearbrook, 39:25) and there were 363 finishers.
Aylesbury Christmas 2016 Race Reports Simon Joanna’s sister Emma came up to stay with us this Christmas and, being a runner herself (she’s a member of Reading Roadrunners), I thought I’d take the opportunity to show her the major tourist attractions in the area. For those of you who don’t know Aylesbury these are best seen from a distance (Australia or New Zealand are recommended) and only once, as quickly as possible… As a regular Parkrunner (she’d done 168 of them) Emma quite fancied ticking off another one and I, having signed up a month or so ago, had a current total of somewhere around zero. So, on Christmas Eve morning we jogged the mile-and-a-bit to the start area. Most Parkruns, apparently, start pretty much where the runners meet. Not so Aylesbury: there’s a 500m walk to the start post, and I couldn’t help thinking that with a little bit of extra thought the route – a 1.3K out leg, two small laps near the A413 and a 1K leg back – could start a lot closer to the finish, but it was ok I guess. Anyway, Emma did her usual ‘shuffle’ and I walked, though I had to wait for her at the end so we completed it together. We recorded 35:06 for the 5K and finished in 163rd and 164th respectively out of 182 runners. So it was that I experienced my first Parkrun, and now I have a time to beat… The high point of Emma’s stay came after the excesses of Christmas Day when we took part in the Aylesbury Boxing Day 5K – an event I last did in 2011. Being just over a mile away, we jogged up to the start in the town centre and registered on the day. Turn-out was pretty good – there were 230 finishers, including runners from Bicester, Chiltern Harriers, Tring, Leighton Buzzard, Peckham, Ealing, Bristol, Leeds and Chester. Some of them were either on holiday or they drove a hell of a long way just for a 5K. The route – unchanged since I last did it – consists of a small lap of Market Square followed by two laps around the outskirts of Aylesbury Town Centre. It’s not particularly inspiring and not particularly pretty but it does the job. Emma, unfortunately, didn’t enjoy it at all – not even the part that passed the chosen location for a singing David Bowie statue (I kid you not) – and walked a fair amount. Having done the first kilometre together I pulled away and finished in 28:46 (183rd out of 230) whilst Emma finished with a time of 36:11 in 226th place. The winning time of 15:21 was set by Owain Jones from Bristol & West AC, with Fabian Downs from Chiltern Harriers second in 15:47 and Simon Coombes from Leighton Buzzard AC third in 16:27. First lady was Helen Eastham from BRAT in a time of 18:48, followed by Tracy Galbraith from On The Run in 20:32 and Alice Wright of Vale of Aylesbury AC in 20:51. Last back was MV60 runner Peter Jacobs in 39:30. There seemed to be a bit of confusion amongst the three people recording numbers, who at one point each had a different number of finishers on their sheets, but the official results were available by the evening of the 27th so I guess they tallied them somehow. All-in-all the event is pretty well organised (mind you, it’s been going for over 50 years so they should have ironed out any problems by now) and for an immediatelyafter-Christmas event it’s well attended. I’ll probably do it again sometime, but only because it’s local. On returning home Emma and I heard the news that George Michael had died. My first thought was: I wonder if Goring will follow Aylesbury’s example and erect a singing George Michael statue…
HH January 2017
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