Spring is now officially here with the start of the Hereford Couriers 5k series which sees three races spread over three months. The weather wasn’t ideal, but was a good deal better than it had been earlier in the day and there were no heavy April showers to deal with but there was quite a strong wind.
Seven Croft Ambrey runners took part in this road race taking on a fairly level anticlockwise route out of Hereford Leisure centre, onto Roman Road, into Bobblestock along Grandstand road then back to the Leisure Centre to complete 300m round the track to the finish.
Inevitably, I was quite a long way behind my fellow Croft runners so can only comment on their finishing positions and give you a brief description of my run.
This series is very popular with some pretty fast athletes. The winner was Stuart Hawkes of Tipton Harriers in 15m 25 and the winning lady Alice Taylor of Cheltenham in 18m. The Croft runners did the sky blues proud. First Croft home was Mark Lamonby in 17.04 (14th) pretty closely followed by Mark Thomas in 17.13 (18th). Next was the every amazing Scott Jones, comfortably the first U15 home in 19.20. Matt Moffat, who I always thought was a distance trail runner, putting in a very respectable time of 19.5 (58), closely followed by Alec, who was very pleased to come in under 20 minutes in 19.54, and also happy for a short while to be in a different age category to Scott and coming first JU17.
The ever amazing Kelly Bowen who shows no signs of slowing down in preparation for the London Marathon in less than three weeks was the next Croft runner home in 21.08 (8 lady) with Ashley Robinson less than 21.59 first MV65.
Then there was me. Short, fast road races are not my favourite things, but I thought I would give the series a go, interested to see how a relatively flat 5k compares to Ludlow Parkrun. Well, it was tough, but I was pleased to be able to keep a fairly steady pace and thanks to Mikes paarlauf training (yes, I had to look up the spelling!) I was able to put in a bit of a sprint finish for the final stretch on the track when I heard a lady coming up behind me and was very pleased not to let her past before the line. I was also very pleased to come in under 25 minutes – 24.25 (29th lady) – which I have been unable to crack at the parkrun.
Thank you as always to Mike for the support and to Theresa for taking the photos and providing a friendly face on the way round.
It is not too late to sign up for the other two races in the series if you would like to join us on May 2 and June 6. Just go to https://www.entrycentral.com/Hereford-5K-series
