You’ll Never Run Alone.

Written by Mike Eldridge on 29/10/2021. Posted in News

Graham Hill’s medal.

It’s a considerably shorter newsletter this week after last week’s marathon effort.

There is Graham Hill’s report on the Liverpool Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon which certainly sounded fun, if you can ever describe competing in a marathon as fun.

There’s also Richard Liggatt’s report on the first of this season’s Winter Series races, where he took the opportunity afforded by Ben and Matt’s absence to claim the accolade of being the first of our club runners to finish and also claim a podium place.

There is a note on the issue of copyrighted photos.

Finally if you have not received the newsletter recently, all editions are available in the news section of the club’s website.

Take care

Best wishes

David Jones

Photographs.

We have had an issue recently concerning copyrighted photographs. We submitted some to The Herald a couple of weeks ago that were copyrighted and for which we did not have authority from the photographer for them to be published.

This resulted in The Herald unfortunately having to reach a settlement with the photographer.

I am extremely grateful to all of you who submit photos to accompany race reports but can I ask that you do not submit official photos. There is an understandable assumption that if you’ve paid for a photo it is okay for publication. This is not always the case. It is usually just for your own private use.

We often use photos taken by Barry Cornelius, indeed in this week’s newsletter I am using one of his photos taken at Sunday’s Winter Series race but this is by agreement with Barry and always on the strict understanding that he is acknowledged.

Graham Hill.

Liverpool Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon

Report – Graham Hill

I entered for the Half Marathon originally planned for April 2020 which was postponed until October 2021. The organisers announced a few weeks before the race that 2021 was going to be the last Rock ‘n’ Roll series Marathon to be held in Liverpool, so I upgraded to run the Marathon the day before the race.

In for a penny in for some pain !!

The Liverpool Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon starts at the Royal Albert Dock, with the course taking in the vibrant city centre, including some of the city’s most iconic buildings, music, sporting and cultural landmarks in an all-inclusive tour of the city.

The course includes the famous Liver Building, Liverpool Town Hall, The Beatles Statue, The Cavern Club, Goodison Park Stadium – home to Everton Football Club, Anfield Stadium – home to Liverpool Football Club, Penny Lane, Stanley Park, Prince’s Park, Sefton Park and the Chinese Arch before the home straight on the promenade, alongside the River Mersey, finishing at the Exhibition Centre Liverpool.

The Marathon course was not only lined with supporters along the way but also live bands playing all sorts of music every mile or so.

I ended up running with my friend Wendy Woodhouse as part of a duo, the cow and the farmer ! We started off at an easy and steady chatty pace taking in the sights, stopping for a few pictures along the route and taking in the atmosphere.

The weather was good with the wind behind us for the last 4 miles along the promenade to the finish line ready, to collect the large medal (bling), and the goodies.

Considering that I was not really marathon fit, I was extremely pleased with my finishing time of 4h 16mins.

All that was left to do was to go back to the hotel to get a nice cup of tea and sit down and watch the Liverpool match in the afternoon and a well earned rest.

All in all, a perfect weekend in Liverpool.

Richard Liggatt – photo courtesy of Barry Cornelius.

Tempo Winter Series – Race 1

Report – Richard Liggatt

Having not entered in 2020, I made a last minute decision to take on the famous hill once again. It is a good way to keep consistent training up during the cold dark months.

It was a slightly windy day but otherwise the conditions were good for running.

In finding out that Ben and Matt were otherwise engaged, I knew I was in with a chance of a decent finish. Although not recognising many of the other competitors I wasn’t exactly sure what to aim for.

My strategy is to not put everything into the hill and push on once it starts to flatten out at the top.

I got to the top in 5th place, not knowing whether anyone around was fresh or fading.

As we started the decent, I moved into 4th and pretty soon could no longer hear footsteps behind me so I could focus on catching the 3rd placed runner (who had pipped me on the line in the Alcester 10k a couple of weeks ago).

The hill from 8-9km is always a killer, but I was slowly gaining on 3rd place and having a target to aim for really helped. Once we got to the top of the mini-hill, I knew I had to overtake him early because sprint finishing is not my strong point. I managed to get ahead of him with about 300m to go and it was clear he didn’t have enough in the tank to put up a fight.

Coming around the corner onto the grass I could see I was enough clear to take the 3rd place and my first ever podium outside of Parkrun!

Hopefully I’ll be available for all of the races and improve on the 7th place series finish I achieved in 2019.

For the full results please follow the link below:

https://www.racetecresults.com/results.aspx?CId=16418&RId=732