Quality not quantity. Only 14 runners were at the busstop for the August edition; lots of “holiday” and “I’m a martyr to my training plan” stories plus one or two “walking wounded” but we still ended up with at least 3PB’s and the fastest time on the event this year. So if you were there and you were fit (many attested they were a bit leggy after the RR10) it was an evening for fast running. Incidentally we had no newbies tonight but were very pleased to see Adrian Field back for his first handicap of the year.
Our winner on the night was Tamas Bown, running free and single and running like a man set free. On observed play we knew Tamas was going well but wow! With a huge PB of 5’59 net Tamas prevailed over the field, teasing his starting buddy Tom Hansen to his own PB of 6’07 (2nd place) and blasting past Paul Oxley into 3rd place before the last corner.
Such a joy to be handicapper when we have such a spread of talents….a pleasure to see our high handicapper, Gill, run through to 5th tonight and we also had 7 runners in the sweet spot with many more in and around what was a real blanket finish. Nobody exactly on par but with 8 different winners in 8 events so far this year we are starting to speak in hushed tones.
Fastest on the night was that fella Tamas Bown (5’59 and up to #11 in the all time list, almost unrecognisable from his previous best of 6’29 and #52 set in 2022), Tom Hansen (6’09 and up to #16 himself set a big PB chasing Tamas to take 2nd) our other sub-7 speedsters were Pete Sansome (6’16 but en passant Pete holds position #4 at 5’45, just FYI you guys), young Jack Sansome (6’47) and the less young Kevin Frisby (6’58). We don’t normally track PB’s but a special shoutout for Jonny Herron who continues to improve and tonight set a new PB of 7’23. Amongst the ladies Liz Marshall (7’30) was our fastest on the night and Sarah Witt (7’44 on a sick note) was our other sub-8.
As to the overall series?
8 down, 4 to go and we still have 8 runners in with a chance of the fabled 12/12 medal.
The overall standings are always a bit missleading with 4 races and 2 discards to go but the big Daddy Pete Sansome is a smidge ahead of the young pretender Jack Sansome with Jonny Herron, Sarah Witt and Liz Marshall in close attendance just waiting for them to slip up.
New to this and wondering what it is all about? A monthly handicap race (on the first Thursday of the month) around an urban 1.14-mile loop in the Harestock area of Winchester. That means that the next race in the 2025 series will be on 4th September 2025. More info here: Harestock Handicap