It was officially recorded as the wettest January in over 100 years! Out of all of those days one of the harshest, just had to be the day of the Ferriby 10 mile. As if this historic race at Skidby (once won by Brendan Foster) isn’t testing enough?!
The in form Gav Mann , fully rested from his previous weeks victory at the Swamp Dodger Duathlon was one of several hardy Lincsquadders that refused to let the cruel conditions curtail their days racing. Gav, despite the maelstroms managed a PB in 58.18, coming 6th overall and first in his age group.
Jane Taylor (another dodger of swamps, there’s a common theme here) also seems to thrive in these conditions and managed to pick off umpteen athletes in the final furlong. An excerpt from Jane’s post on the forum says it all……..
Well, I thought the conditions for the Swampdodger were grim but the Ferriby 10 mile yesterday made that look like a breeze in the park. Cold, strong wind with lashing rain/hail/sleet and roads that more nearly resembled rivers. As if that wasn’t bad enough, there were people running in vests and shorts – just looking at them made you feel even colder – and I was regretting just forgetting a hat! It was a great run though, and massive congratulations to Gav Mann, Gareth Crabb and Paul Ralph who all put in great runs the latter two finishing in 1:09:45 and 1:18:47 respectively. I was very happy to get round in 1:25:30 as I hadn’t been sure I’d make the distance and was very chuffed to move up 46 places between half way and the finish and especially to pass people on the last climb. The final conundrum was desperately needing to change into dry clothes but having hands that were so cold you couldn’t undo zips, pins etc.
GB qualifier Ruth wilson was also finding some early season form and finished 7th female overall in 1:10:03.
Apologies if I’ve missed anyone from the results. As the club continually grows it gets tougher trying to weedle out the Lincsquadders when running under their Running Club colours. Please let me know on the forum and I can make a quick edit to this post.