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AFTER FIVE MONTHS A REAL RACE

Still Flying

Picture of Charlotte Smith courtesy of http://markeaston.zenfolio.com/

 

After five months some Fairlands Valley Spartans were able to compete in a real road race on Sunday.  It was just down the road in St Albans.

There were 580 finishers but the start was superbly organised to comply with the latest Covid guidance.  A result sheet was possible by the use of chip timing technology.

In wave one CRAIG WILSON was 67th with a brilliant 38 minutes 11 seconds.  CHARLOTTE SMITH came storming in with a fantastic new personal best of 45 minutes 30 seconds for 202nd and DANNY SCANLON was 135th in 41 minutes 41 seconds.

There were some Spartan mishaps in wave two.  After a really smooth start both occurred on a narrow and rough bit of pavement between kilometres 3 and 4.  LIZ SMITH was going very well before she came to grief while JIM BROWN had covered the first two miles in 15 minutes 44 seconds before he did a pretty good superman impersonation but unfortunately without the special powers.  Liz was picked up while Jim got up but slowed down a lot, particularly in the last kilometre, and walked over the line in 58:23 to be 146th in wave two.

Jim said, “Despite my tumble it was great to take part in a licensed event after so many weeks.  The start format with the waves and ribbles was unusual but showed what could be done while complying with the latest Covid guidance.  It was a race and although we could not hang around and socialise, we kept our distance, we saw people we’ve not seen for a very long time.”

 

Virtually Flying For The Twelfth Time

Four Spartans joined 128 others for the twelfth virtual Fly 5K event.

Nick Kleanthous improved his 2020 time by six seconds to 25:37 (60th). Nicola Andersson was 83 rd in 27:59; Ken Jude 85th in 28:07 and Paul Holgate 106th in 31:52.

 

Not a Parkrun

Saturday saw six Spartans on the tenth (not) Stevenage ParkRun 5K.

In this virtual event, runners in different places at different times they were Nick Kleanthous 25:36; Marian Morley 26:45; Nicola Andersson 27:59; James McSweeney 28:43; Paul Jennings 29:40 and Paul Holgate 30:52.

A side effect of virtual racing is that you can be taking part in more than one event with the same run.

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