by Rick Ansell
Having Entries on the Day only, makes life much easier as there is no need to pay Martin Stone for Si or to create some sort of website for people to make their entries on but it does create, for the organiser, a certain frisson of interest: how many people can we expect?
There were quite a few email enquiries in the days leading up to the race and I was worried we might get mobbed. The course enters a fairly narrow footpath after about 250m and more than 200 runners would create a bit of a bottleneck. What would happen if we got 350?? In the end we got a record entry of a handful over 200, just about a comfortable number. And 30 odd more than last year. The word is out.
The £5 entry fee was maintained and the free pint afterwards still offered which certainly drew people in. Despite a generous discount from the pub, the price of beer being what is I ended up paying an impressive bar bill of just under £1,000 and consequently we made a small loss which Tring Running Club will absorb. Next year I think we will need to increase the price a little to cover the beer.
Months of dry weather and a warm day with cooling breeze meant the record could be threatened. Male record holder Mathieu Marshall was in attendance but for the second year in a row was beaten into second place, this time by James Palmer, though Mathieu kept hold of his record. First woman, breaking the female record by over a minute, was Abbie Bulbulian who led a posse of Clapham Chasers (from deepest darkest South London, not the one near Settle). Mathieu’s Headington Club took the men’s prize again but our own Club, Tring, took the Women’s .
Things seemed to go off smoothly due mainly to the several members of Tring Running Club who turned out on the day to help get all the marshalling, timing, recording and results done and the course marked and then unmarked.
Big thanks as always to them and particularly to the Shoulder of Mutton for hosting us. If you are ever in Wendover and in need of a pint you know where to get one.
