White Horse Half, 6th April 2008

More PBs, medals and excellent performances, as conditions 'turned out nice again' after a very unpromising start. Tony won the wine and his report is below.

Kate and Katherine also won their categories in the County Championships, whilst Denise B picked up 3rd in the LV35 category.

In addition, the men were the 3rd team in the County Championship, and the women were 2nd, but it looks as if they were subsequently disqualified, as explained below.

White Horse Half Marathon

There was I, in bed at 7 am, still enjoying my first cup of tea of the day, when the phone started to ring “the race is still on” is the race still on?” What was all the fuss about? So I looked out of my bedroom window to see a deep blanket of snow covering Eynsham.
Unbelievably, the race was still on according to their website and a call to the organisers, much to Kate’s disappointment. Yes I agree, that like you all, I thought she was made of tougher stuff than that! Anyway, after agreeing to set off even a little earlier than arranged, I collected the Cassington crew, excluding softie Derek who refused to leave until Mrs B was home safely from work in Banbury (what an old romantic!) and headed towards Grove. On the way the snow was just as deep, even though Jane thought it was not as bad for a while (I think we were going under a fly-over at the time, as it looked just as deep to me). Ben and I thought the race would probably be called off at the last minute. But we arrived safety, which I bet surprised the Breakers as I’m not sure they are too comfortable with my driving! I parked the car and we trudged our way through the snow to the race H.Q.
The race started on time, with the snow clearing miraculously within the last 5 minutes. Nineteen ERR members took part, with Lesley using Pat’s number – big mistake, which may become clearer later. I think I made the fatal mistake of starting off in front of the ERR squad, as I must have flattened tons of soft snow, which obviously exhausted me to such an extent that it allowed Ben, Graham and Nick all to pass me (I stood well away from them at the end to avoid an in-depth inquest/review of every step) and nearly every woman that took part to get a pb!
That is all I want to say about the race, but then came prize-giving!! Oh dear!
I was thinking of how proud we would be on Wednesday, when at the club I would be able to announce the impressive list of individual and team prizes ERR had won. What I can still say is that there were some fantastic performances from ERR men and women, which I will still announce on Wednesday, but that list would have been even more impressive had Lesley remembered to tell the entries secretary about her using Pat’s number. I’m sure we will all learn from that, especially Lesley!
Anyway, it was a fantastic run with some incredible ERR performances, but I think the performance of the day came from the race director who made that early morning decision that the race should go ahead – brilliant!

Tony…