Sunday 19 February 2012

Isle of Oxney 5 Mile Dash 2012

Date: 19 Feb 2012
Distance: 5 Miles

Note: As of 2013 this race is now called the Tenterden 5.

We arrived in the village of Wittersham about an hour before the race was due to start to allow plenty of time for wandering, warming up and chatting to Terry, who had also signed up for the race. I should point out that we forgot to pick up the SLR on our way out of the house, so the photos are all from Mrs7t's smart phone.

making our way to the start line

We had already been sent our race numbers in the post, so registration was not necessary on the day. We weren't sent timing chips, so we thought we may have to pick one up. A quick chat to one of the marshals in race HQ informed us that the race was going to be timed the old fashioned way - with a stopwatch!


off we go (i/we have a habit of starting from the back)

We made our way up to the start line and before we knew it were on our way. We finished our conversation during the first 100 metres of the race and then went our separate ways. I pushed on and filtered through the other runners, one of the attractions of the race was that it was a local race in aid of the local town hall. I like these races.

the ladies - hanging out in wittersham during the race

The two wonderful ladies were there with me of course, and Mrs7t took all of the photos here. They spent some time looking around Wittersham and chatting to someone about minimalist running, while we were making our way through the country lanes.

me finishing

The course seemed to undulate, but didn't contain any serious hills. The first three kilometres felt like they were mostly made up of downhills and after that I felt like we were climbing. As usual with these kind of races I try to take in a bit of the scenery as I run along, however, most of the country lanes had hedges on either side so I gave up after a while and just focused on running.


terry finishing

When I finally made it back into Wittersham, there were a few people out on the road cheering. It gave me a nice little boost at the end of the race to hear them. The finish line was at the race HQ. Once I had crossed the line I looked down to check my stopwatch, however, a few seconds had passed since crossing the line. I remember the stopwatch saying something around 35 minutes. I would have to wait for the results to be processed and uploaded onto the nice work website to know my official time.

medals!

About five minutes later Terry came around the corner and across the line. Initial timings suggested that he had run just under 40 minutes. Along with most other runners, we headed into the refreshment area to stock up on water and cake.

cake and stuff

As the car park exit was blocked by the finish line we had no option but to hang around. This worked out quite well because we stayed behind and watched the prize giving ceremony and had some of the delicious home-made carrot and coriander soup (and some more cake).

the route (from my gps data)

The official results were made available later the same day, in total 105 runners took part. Here is how we both did..

Me:

Position: 18th
Time: 34:49

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Terry:

Position: 49th
Time: 39:40

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7t.



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