Despite the bitterly cold evening there were some excellent performances among the 23 Spartans braving the weather in the 69th running of the club’s Handicap 5k on the 28th March, including 7 runners completing the tough course in less than 20 minutes and 19 of the 23 finishers recording personal bests (PB), season bests (SB) or year best times (YB).
Thank you to Malcolm Devis (Tracy’s dad) for his assistance with the finish and also to Sharon Crowley and Tracy Pez for their support of Abi around the course.
Winner on the night was STEVE KEENE in a new PB time of 22:06, 2:54 ahead of handicap, with STEVE GOUGH 2nd in a new SB time of 27:13, 2:17 better than handicap, and TODD GRAY 3rd also in a SB time (18:27) 2:03 faster than handicap.
Winning female was LORRAINE WYATT (5th overall) in a new PB time 27:26, 1:49 quicker than handicap, with LISA LIVERSIDGE 2nd in 24:50, only 5 seconds shy of her own PB time, and young ABI PEZ 3rd in her debut 5k with an excellent time of 31:12.
Fastest runner was RICHARD BATE in a SB 16:44, only 11 seconds short of the course record, with GRANT RAMSEY 2nd quickest in a YB time of 17:00, and CRAIG HALSEY 3rd quickest in a SB time of 17:43, while TODD GRAY (18:27), LIAM HERBERT (18:35), JOHN HARRIS (19:29) and DEAN CARPENTER (19:35 PB) all also recorded sub-20 minute times.
LISA LIVERSIDGE was quickest female, with LORRAINE WYATT 2nd quickest and ABI PEZ 3rd fastest.
Except for Simon Harris the total time between first and last finisher was only 3:58 and just 1:41 between 2nd-21st, while 91% of finishers finished within 55 seconds of their adjusted handicap and the only finishers more than 1 minute outside of their adjusted handicap were the 2 runners whose times were estimated on the night.
Final Handicap 5k before the MWL will be on the 25th April.
Results: Result_28Mar13 (2)