A beautiful autumnal morning in
Newcastle provided some ideal running conditions for the
27th running of the famous BUPA Great North Run on Sunday.
The GNR race is the world's most popular half marathon road
running event and was devised by former Olympic 10,000 m
bronze medallist and BBC Sport commentator Brendan Foster
who was inspired after running in the Round the Bays Race in
New Zealand in 1979. Two Ilford Athletes, Malcolm Muir and
Keelie Brookes, made the near 300 mile trip North with Muir
featuring highly recording a superb position of 93rd
overall with an excellent time of 73.17 in an incredible
field of nearly 50 thousand runners.
The Ilford man who could be spotted on TV
on the elite start made a conservative opening during the
initial stampede of the mass start clocking 6 minutes for the
1st downhill mile before speeding up to 28.33 for 5miles and
going through the 10 mile mark in 55.59. Muir was surprised by
his performance confessing he was only in the North East to
enjoy himself having sampled some the traditional Geordie
hospitality the night before and crawling into bed at 3am. He
had been seeking some relief from a heavy racing schedule which
had seen him take two SEAA medals including a personal silver in
the SEAA Fell Running Champs held at Ventnor, IOW the previous
week. Muir running for his 2nd claim club Springfield Striders
managed 2 second places and a 3rd in the 3 race series and
ending up runner up to Cambridge Harrier Dean Lacey.
Keelie Brookes did extremely well to
record 1hr 42 minutes 8 secs having completed only 4 weeks of
serious "emergency" training. She went with the pace early on
but found the last 3 miles including the long finishing drag
along the seafront at South Shields extremely tough
Meanwhile the British Masters
10k Road Championships took place in Newtown, Powys and was
surprisingly well-supported and competitive given the location
and apparent lack of promotion. It was also well-organised, and
the course, changed from the planned original following
flooding, was fast despite a tough climb on each of the two
laps.
Ilford's "super oldie" John
Batchelor ran the entire race comfortably in the belief that he
was well ahead of others in his age group, though pestered by a
persistent athlete in Birchfield black who he couldn't shake
off. With a kilometre to go the Birchfield man moved ahead by
about ten metres, and BatcheIor was prepared to let him go until
200m from the finish a familiar voice in the crowd encouraged
him to get a move on. The Ilford man then chased and passed his
rival in the finishing straight to find he was Gordon Orme, two
weeks past his 65th birthday and therefore in the same
category. The times were recorded as 38:50 to his 38:52, with
Batchelor placed 67th overall out of 149 finishers. This was by
far the closest finish of all the age groups.
Pam Jones decided not to
run, having put up a terrific show the previously in the
week where the ladies were the
stars of the show on a mild, wet and miserable Friday
afternoon at the Serpentine last Friday of the month 10k in
Hyde Park.. Ten women went under 21 minutes. There was
another W70 series record for Pam Jones, who has improved
the mark from 25:08 to 24:49 over the last 5 months. Pam's
performance warranted a massive 92.3 pc on the age graded
percentages. Nicola Hopkinson clocked 22.03 to take the 1st
FV45 category running just over 7 mins per mile for 12th
woman out of 47 in a race limit of 200 runners
Sunday also marked the 18th day out of
30 days of fasting for Ramadhan for Ilford athlete Abdi
Berleen. Nevertheles Berleen ran 36.08 in The Guardian
Copped Hall 5 Mile race despite not being allowed food or
drink between dawn and sunset.
