WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH THE TOUGH GET GOING!

There was a time when the Chorley 4 attracted large numbers of SWAC members, but those days seem to be sadly long gone! Back in the good old days the likes of Jon Singleton and Terry Bolland use to affectionately call this race the Chorley Bore due to the course being about as exciting as running round a motorway ring road! Interestingly Terry's P.B. set in the early 90's would have given him a easy victory here today! now there is something for Brian Grice to sink his teeth into! the times are a changing!
Anyway a small band of us made it to the start line for two laps of boredom and pain, first back for the club was Rob Mcgrath scorching round in an impressive 22.12 a whopping 45 second improvement on last year and good enough for 17th place and first vet 40. As for me, well i don't remember the last time I felt so bad, I ran the first mile in a slow 5.40 and it felt so hard i really wanted to hand the towel in! from some where I found the resolve to carry on but man did it feel like torture,I guess after such a torrid time i should be happy with 22.37 but then I keep thinking back to when i could run 21.31 back in 2003 and it seemed easy!
Andy Hudson a regular here like myself for many years pulled a muscle on his way to recording 25.51 , lets hope he recovers in time for the Benrigg race this weekend! Not too far behind it was nice to see Ian Kilshaw finding the time in his busy work schedule to run 26.21, Ian told me that he's only being doing steady runs this year so this race must have been a bit of a shock to the system!
Of the girls, Vicky Harvey had a good run with 28.35 not far off her best, Sarah Reynelds had a tough time and battled on to finish in 36.24, Sarah was quite ill this winter and is still struggling to find top form, lets hope next weeks Haigh Hall brings us better results!
The most stunning run of the night came from Katie Ingram of Horwich RMI Harriers running an incredible 21.29 for 8th place and smashing her p.b. by almost a minute.
Looking on the bright side I did finish 24 secs up on this race last year, so with luck i should be able to reach my target of low 22s by the end of summer.
RESULTS