Busy Weekend

Enjoyed a busy weekend of Athletics/Running this weekend.   Saturday morning was Park Run morning in Redcar and we enjoyed a bumper turnout of 104 runners.   The previous best was 72 so we welcomed a whole host of new runners into the park.  I opted for tag handing out this week as my mind was on my first 5000m of the year at Whitley Bay later in the day.   The Pearson representatives on the day were my two boys Jacob who managed a 31.20 min 5km and younger brother Tom who managed 33.13.   Although 10 year old Jacob holds the bragging rights this week it is younger brother Tom (7) who edged on the Age graded by over 3%.....Tom followed his 5km up with a mile junior run and then after everyone departed Whitley Bay wanted to do a 400m timed run!   Duly completed in 2 mins and 3 seconds he earned a share of an Egg Foo Yung chinese meal after a long day!   It was he said..."the best day of my life".....

Onto my race....as we had a full team I only needed to run the 5000m which was quite a relief given that I had not raced since the Marathon.

There was a lot of talk of sub 16 efforts before the start and it did look like a good line up.  

First lap the whole field was fairly bunched and I sat at the rear of the field wondering who was going to make the early move.  In the end it turned out to be Carter of Tyne Bridge and Mcmillan of Jarrow closely tracked by clubmate Tom Danby of New Marske and Sparrow Morley of Tyne Bridge.   Throughout the race I worked my way through the field and ended up in 5th place chasing Sparrow Morley down who finished in 16.27.  Had I managed to get near him on the last lap I suspect his finish would have been stronger than mine as I saw him do a super fast 55ish second relay leg as part of the 4 x 400m team!  Im fairly certain my legs do not possess a 55 second 400m especially not at the end of a 5km.

In the end I finished 5th in 16.33.00 which I am pleased with as it represents a personal best as a Vet 40 for the 5000m and also it is almost 7 seconds quicker than the same fixture last year.   Its always nice to see progress being made!   Breaking 16.30 has become quite a focus for me now and it is something that will hopefully come by the end of the summer either on the road or on the track.

Today I opted for a spectator role as I took brother in law Phil to the Melmerby 10km and for the first time experienced life on the other side.....I saw the start go off, took a few photos then headed to the village hall to see that the boys had made about half a dozen friends and were in the middle of a mini soccer game.   So there was only one thing to do....  A cup of coffee and a big slice of homemade fruit cake made by the village hall committe at Melmerby...delicious!    There were some extremely hot looking runners coming back from the narrow lanes and I think times were probably affected by this with Phil coming in around 38 minutes.    Given the heat I didnt think this was too bad at all!

Half Time Scone!

Feeling the Heat!

There were lots of other races on today but special mention to Ross Murray who followed up a big pb at the BMC Sport City meeting last week with another big pb today at Hengelo with a 3.34.76 1500m.....it will be nice to be within a minute of that when I run a local 1500m at Clairville on Tuesday night.    That result puts him 21st on the all time list for 1500m on Power of 10...nice also to see Jess Ennis hit pbs in three events contributing to a British Record in the Heptathlon.  

Things are looking good......