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| Thanks to Louise for this picture |
The third HRRL race of 2014 – and like the other 2, blessed
by blue skies and sunshine. It was
decidedly warm – so much so that I regretted putting on my warmer running
tights – and Louise divested a base layer mid run (but more of that later).
Parking was in the enormous central car park for Salisbury
for £1.70. I was dreading the walk to
the leisure centre start as I remembered toiling along the river path thinking
uncharitable thoughts about accuracy of race measuring at the end of the 21K
option in last year’s 5-4-3-2-1 race. It
turns out that walking to a race start in good company (Louise & Sam) is
much easier than running a final 1K of a 21K race. Enjoyable even.
We picked up race numbers in the sports hall, panicked about
safety pins (saved by Lou – and then we spotted the desk with safety pins),
dropped off bags & had unusually short queues for the loos. Met up with Tanya – making it 4 SRS runners,
1 team. Feeling very on top of things,
we used the track to do a proper warm up for once.
It was properly warm.
Lou removed a layer at the first water station & handed to a marshal
on a bike who very kindly offered to take it back to the leisure centre. And he did, leaving it clearly labelled for
runner 51. Pete, you win the SRS award
for lovely marshal of the race & you are high in the stakes for the 2014
award.
The route was beautiful – lanes through pretty villages with
gorgeous old houses, views of the river, Old Sarum, countryside, black swans,
white swans and lots of daffs & snowdrops.
Almost an out and back – we followed the river north on the west bank
outwards then on the east bank south. It
wasn’t too hilly although the roads did climb more in the second half.
Both Sam & I overcooked our pace at the start. I figured I was taking it too fast when I
realised I was close to my current parkrun PB at 5K, so at 4 miles, I persuaded
Lou to go on without me.
The best bit was being cheered on by Sally who had made the
trip to support us. Very much
appreciated. I high fived a couple of
kids – and the marshals were very upbeat.
The worst bit was the 3rd water station at 8
miles being dry by the time we got there.
I’d been telling Louise about one of the reasons for Salisbury
relocating from the Old Sarum site was a limited water supply (the fascinating
facts I regale fellow runners with…) – I wasn’t expecting history to be
repeated as we ran past Old Sarum!
Louise very kindly handed me a cup of water as soon as I’d made it over
the finish line – and I appreciated that so much that we caught Sam & Tanya
at the last bit of the run with water. I
don’t think that Sam or Tanya expected to get sunburned!
Sadly, no medal & no cake. But unlike Ryde, it was easy to find post run
water – and unlike Stubbington, no queue for bags. The race t-shirts were similar to the
Lordshill 10 t-shirts – technical and red.
Beautiful morning, beautiful run.
- Louise 1:43:41
- Gin 1:47:20
- Sam 1:56:59
- Tanya 2:05:15
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