The Great Run company has now decided to hold the Bristol 10k and Half Marathon on a single day. I guess that makes sense, as they only have to close the roads on one day – even if many athletes would love to run both events each year.
However the atmosphere in Bristol city centre on Sunday was extraordinary. Everywhere you looked there were runners, and cheering spectators lined the route in their thousands. The simple innovation of printing first-names on the race number meant you got to hear your name called out by hundreds of kind supporters, and I can’t tell you what a curiously motivating boost it is to hear your name called out by a total stranger! The Great Bristol Run is civic life at its best – and I would urge each and every TRC member to consider signing up next year. It’s such a privilege to run on closed streets around our beautiful city, so if you have not done it before, then you’re in for a treat!
Before turning to the results in Bristol, a brief recap on the TRC heroes who braved the howling gales of the frozen North to compete in the Great North Run. This is Europe’s (the world’s?) largest mass-participation half marathon, and such is the demand for places that if it gets any bigger they might have to move the race to the rolling, manicured lawns of Ant ‘n’ Dec’s country estate in order to accommodate everyone.
Chris Foley finished comfortably inside two hours, and that outstanding achievement secured him an 11th place in his age category; in a race of tens of thousands, there are bound to be some particularly pacy pensioners to go up against, so Chris should be delighted with that result.
Melanie Wilson ran a parkrun the day before, which is the sort of decision Sir Humphrey Appleby would describe as ‘courageous’, yet she still ran an impressive 1hr 42 mins and 38 seconds. She was only 15 seconds behind Kevin Wood who also recorded 11th place in his age category.
What is even more impressive, however, is the fact that a mere fortnight later Kevin ran his second half marathon of the month in Bristol, and managed to run a bit quicker too, finishing in third place in his age category, in a time of 1 hr 41mins and 38 seconds. It is a magnificent feat to run two halfs at that intensity in such a short space of time. Definitely overall performance of the month!
However, despite my obvious bias, I am sure Kevin will concede that the individual performance of the month has to go to 19 yr old James Harrod. We always suspected that James might be quite good over the half marathon distance, but you never really know until you try and race one. He set off with that wonderful confidence of youth, leading a large pack of runners, who were behind the runaway winner. James went through 10k in 34 mins and 10 seconds, in second place, and soon whittled the chasing pack to just three runners.
Perhaps inevitably, he couldn’t quite match the final surges of the athletes who came second and third, and was disappointed to be overhauled in the last mile by a fast-finishing Bristol athlete, but he still crossed the line in 5th place overall, first junior, in a time of 1 hr 13 mins and 2 seconds.
Not far behind James, Phil Blackburn produced another stunning performance to knock almost four minutes off the time he recorded in last year’s race. Phil surged through the field and finished in 1 hr 22 mins and 18 seconds. Phil’s progress is largely down to having had 12 months of consistent, aerobic-based training, combined with his faster efforts on the track. There is still so much more to come, and I think he could now aim to run under 80 minutes some time in 2023.
Paul Harrod was next home in a PB of 1 hr 24 mins exactly. He managed to squeeze ahead of George Evans, the real life inspiration behind Inspector Gadget, who put on his go-go bionic legs for this race, and made a mockery of a long period of injury niggles, to race to a 1 hr 25 min and 19 seconds finish. But more importantly George was the overall winner in his age category (which can’t be revealed for security reasons). That is a wonderful achievement, and to come top in ANY category in a race of this size and scale is something the whole club should celebrate.
Connor Vidal-Cocker was next home in a fraction under 1 hr 28. I think he’s just a year or two behind Phil in developing that endurance base that should enable him to run these longer events in times commensurate with his already very impressive results over shorter distances. The ever-consistent Garry Slater also ran 1 hr 28 mins, while Peter Cable made what I think was his half-marathon debut (?) but either way should be pleased with his 1 hr 32. Dylan Roberts has not been able to train much recently, and we know at his best he’d be up there challenging Phil, but such is Dylan’s natural ability that he essentially jogged round the course, and still finished in 1 hr 33 minutes. We all hope to see him in full stride very soon.
Daniel Nott finished in 1 hr 45 minutes, while Stuart Barnes and Roger Glew were only a few seconds apart in 1 hr 53 minutes, and I think both of them may have run PBs for the distance.
The Bristol 10k race was the first event of the day, and while it attracted fewer TRC runners than the Half, it was actually the more competitive race, as it featured a Home International competition that seemed to be very closely contested between runners from England and Wales.
Andrew Darton has finally been able to train properly without injury setbacks, which is fantastic news, and he backed up a recent 20 min parkrun with a fine effort of 41:37 to be first Thornbury runner. Jonathan Hall ran 48:08 while Sam Glew finished in 1 hr 7 minutes.