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2012 Club League Race Report - Race 3: Cap'n Phil's Hilly 100 Warmup
There was an overwhelming sense of gratitude at the end of this season’s longest Club Race, Cap’n Phil’s Hilly 100 Warmup, which saw runners in the lanes around Henley and Lowsonford for the second time this year.
Firstly, everyone was grateful that the weather was significantly kinder than for the preceding Sunday’s combined Stratford half-marathon/half-marathon event. On top of this, it seemed that runners were also very grateful to Cap’n Phil for setting a testing Hilly 100 warmup course. Almost the entire field could be heard to exclaim ‘thank Phil for that!’ as they crossed the finish line.
The larger than usual gathering of marshals might have aroused the suspicions of the less generous souls in the field, but generally all of those helping on the day were a model of restraint, keeping their sly chuckles, raised eyebrows and ‘rather them than me’ type comments to themselves.
Only one diplomatic near-miss occurred on the day, after raceday marshal Martin Dorrill was heard to say that the course ‘could have been much harder’ within earshot of the field. Most were prepared to let the comment go, but seasoned observers would have seen that famous ‘flash of steel’ appear in Nick Benbow’s eyes, and would have known that trouble was in the offing. However, the swift action of Jon ‘you can call me John’ Mettyear averted danger. His knowledge of what makes Nick tick was invaluable: Once told that there were ‘cakes available somewhere nearby’, a becalmed Nick strode off with his mind fully focused on the possibilities of getting hold of a chocolate éclair, jam doughnut or cream horn.
Whatever the reasons for their increased numbers, the help of the Marshals meant that all ran smoothly on the day, and my thanks go to Helen Neal and Liz Hegan, both of whom ended up walking most of the course to help with repointing arrows and generally preventing people from heading in the wrong direction, Glyn Clarke, who manned the lone 5-mile outpost near Preston Bagot, Dave Ramus, Clive Pearce and Martin Dorrill (the Lowsonford team) and Keith Blake and Gary Dilnot who provided help and encouragement to runners at the finish.
Course photographers Rod Goodwin, Colin Underhill and Helen Neal are loading some outstanding shots onto Facebook, and my thanks to them for their efforts. Most of the photos are very impressive, however one shot of Chairman Pete does add a certain irony to his comment that the modelling shots on the club kit page of the website ‘aren’t very easy on the eye’.
Finally, special thanks also to Pete Matthews for his role as cycle sweeper and to Phil Gould for setting up and running the water station.
As for the results, unfortunately one person was missing from the first published version of results, and once this was corrected, the missing runner: Liam Chapple, proved to be the winner. Apologies for this error on the first version.
Despite taking nearly 2 minutes off her predicted time, and thereby showing signs of hitting form at the right time for the Hilly 100, Ros Matthews just missed out on top place in the field to Liam. Gwyn Davies and Matt Kingston-Lee were 3rd and 4th: both looked very strong on the finishing hill and appeared to find the course to their liking.
It was good to see Andy Holbrook and Sean Mitchell at their first race of the Club League season, and they both played their jokers on the day. Andy picked up 8th place as the result of a slight improvement on his predicted time, and secured a healthy 88 points. Sean was lower down the results list, but opened his points tally with a handy 68 points.
Full (corrected) results are here: Race 3 Race results
(NB: The version of the results sent to Phil prior to Hilly 100 team selection did include Liam and reported his, and all other times, correctly).
The 'ever presents' for the first 3 races are heading the field in the League standings, with Glyn Clarke now the overall leader. Rich Steel leads Group C, Sally Hicks Group B and Liz Hegan Group A.
Current League Standings (revised following correction to results) are here: League Standings after Race 3
As for the race ‘guests’ list, I don’t yet have registration details for several new members, so these appear as guests for now. Once I have the details I’ll make sure this race is taken into account as the first of the 2 you need to run before you can start gaining points.
Once again, we welcomed a couple of Warwick Wasps members to the race, including past attendee Jayne Mumford. Prominent local runner Gavin Davies and his Centurion colleague, Marc Curtis also added to the numbers. I’m sure Gavin enjoyed leading the field home, and we look forward to welcoming all guests back at future races. Guest/New Member results are here: Race 3 Guest results |
