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Wright Hassall Regency 10k
Report – Max Ross
The early morning sunshine in Leamington Spa was eagerly received by Stratford AC’s 10 runners on the start line, with no wind or cloud in sight!
Ahead of the 1300 runners was a trail around Newbold Comyn over a somewhat uphill but dry bridleway surface. The route came back into town by means of a steep descent, reaching better surfaces and cheering crowds of spectators for the fastest section along Newbold Terrace.
The remainder of the course meanders around the parks with a series of tight twisting turns, bridges and tunnels doing their utmost to break the runners flow!
Ben Kruze completed the course in a blistering time of 32 minutes and 5 seconds to claim 2nd place, an astounding performance that he described as a great ‘marker’ to gauge his recovery from Covid!?
Never far behind, Matt Burdus-Cook achieved 5th place with a time of 34 minutes and 27 seconds. Matt stated, “I’ve always seen the Regency as the first race of the spring, so it was nice to see it return to it’s usual slot in the calendar. Having not run it for a few years I’d forgotten how the undulating first half and mixed terrain can drag your pace, so I was pleased overall with my run, and really enjoyed the usual busy atmosphere around the park sections of the course.”
I took the third Stratford vest across the finish line in 29th place, with a time of 39 minutes. It was a new personal best, carving a good 5 minutes off my 2019 effort on this course and claiming my first sub 40 10k!
Next through was my wife, Suzanne Ross, putting in an extra sprint effort across the finishing line (no doubt in a hurry to congratulate me) catching 200th place with a time of 46:38 and claiming 10k PB too!
Next was Philip Brennan in 53:24 making a welcome return to external competitive running after a long lay-off, followed closely by Lisa Stevens in 54:38. Regency 10k regular Dave Maundrell finished with a time of 58:30 closely followed by Jan McLure in 58:38 both completing in under an hour.
Jill Wilson completed in 01:14 and over 10 years after his first attempt on the course, John Butler came in with 01:17:33!
Phil Brennan’s Regency
The welcome return of Phil Brennan to competitive running after a lengthy delay due to a long term injury, means we also get the benefit of his erudite race reports! Welcome back Mr B
Back in the Game
Report – Phil Brennan
After Wednesday’s Shakespeare race I felt no ill-effects, so I decided to take up my place in the Regency 10k.
The first scary thing was the sheer number of people. I hadn’t been in such a crowd for two years.
At the start I met Lisa Stevens, whom I hadn’t met before but we worked out that we were within a half minute of each other on Wednesday. In the event we didn’t really race but she was pretty close to me at the finish.
There weren’t that many Stratford folk in the race unlike in previous years, it seems to have fallen out of fashion since the old days.
Speaking of falling out, I then chose a robust way of checking whether my long-term groin injury was recovering by tripping over a speed bump after half a mile.
As I lay in a daze, I thought I saw that someone had scratched “Paul Hawkins Woz ‘Ere” on it but I could have been mistaken( Paul once having come a cropper many years ago, requiring medical assistance if my memory serves me correctly ). I decided to jog forward rather than back to get first aid and then just kept going with a gravel rash but no permanent damage.
I saw Ben Kruze at the finish, who said he was reasonably happy with second, as he was recovering from illness. I didn’t see anyone else; the finish area isn’t really designed for meeting and greeting.
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