Owing to someone smashing one of the side windows on my car earlier on Sunday morning, I found myself being chauffeured by Mark L, accompanied by Tomo, to the Arden 9 mile road race.

I had seen the profile on the net and it looked a bit hilly in parts, but it couldn't be as bad as last weeks Rumble, or could it?

As Mark was entering on the day, we arrived nice and early, about 9ish. I had sent my entry in the post the previous weekend, with just a cheque, without a stamped envelope, and the organisers very kindly sent me a number through the post, although it did make up for the extra postage I had to pay for my Frampton number!
Martin turned up about half an hour after us, and then along came Andy Workman, so plan A, the easy jog round, went out of the window. Catherine Myers was spotted lining up at the start of the race also. While we were waiting for the start I took the opportunity to try out a new warming gel I bought on the net, Mark tried some first, then Tomo tried it and both said it had no effect, so I tried some, smeared a load of it on and, it might have been in my head, but my legs didn't feel quite so heavy. Might be a tenner wasted though!

The start was on a bit of an incline and for some reason, most of the runners were hopefully facing downhill, so after a word from the organiser nearly everyone turned round and there was a flurry of activity as the faster runners changed ends.
The route was nowhere near as hilly as the profile made it look and the large hill towards the end never appeared, there were numerous inclines and downhills (what's the opposite to incline?) but after last weeks run they were no problem.
I started off fairly slowly due to the fairly narrow path out to the road and then started passing runners on the slight uphill gradient. I couldn't see any teal vests up ahead so I presumed that Andy was up with the frontrunners, Andy must have decided on an easy start as I was surprised when about three miles in he jogged up beside me, he didn't stay there for long though and off he went. I managed to keep him in sight for most of the race, but lost him towards the end. I was running with a couple of runners and we were taking it in turns to lead our little group, as we were coming along by the lake I was behind them and they seemed to slow down a bit, so rather than try and get passed them, I had a bit of a breather, knowing there was only a mile or so to go. As soon as we were back on the road I pushed on and left them, catching up with another small group and eventually passing them on the last downhill bit before the end. Shortly after that the course took us back into the field for the last sprint to the finish.

Andy was first in for Bournville with non member Tomo coming in not far behind me, closely followed by Martin, Mark came in not long behind them and I think he was pleased with himself as he has been struggling with injury lately, Catherine came in a bit later to make up the Bournville contingent.

We were given a generous goody bag with a gel, bar of Cadburys fruit and nut, a rather nice glass thingy with two runners in it (makes a pair with the one from Aldridge 10k) and a crunchy energy bar, plus an apple flavoured bar of some kind, loads of bananas were there for the taking and plenty of cups of water, how they managed to get a single fly in every one, I'll never know.

Great little race and I will definitely be back next year.

Timberhonger 10k is on next week in Bromsgrove if anyone is interested???

Terry

Overall Position	Time	Name	Category	Race No.
61	63:35	Andy Workman	M16-39	289
75	64:30	Terry Doherty	M50+	189
162	71:40	Martin Foster	M50+	224
191	74:29	Mark Lynock	M16-39	214
329	96:28	Catherine Myers	F35-44	390

Results to appear here