British record – It’s official.

Tempo Winter Series

Race 1

Ilmington – 23^rd October

Report – Lisa Lambourn

Last Sunday saw the return of the Tempo Winter Series.  After a night of torrential rain and with a yellow weather warning in place for heavy rain and lightning, there was much talk of snorkels, arm bands and flippers.  Although a couple of entrants could not get to Ilmington due to localised flooding, at 10am the skies cleared and the rain held off for the race with the sun putting in a brief appearance.

There was a great turn out from Stratford AC with a sea of yellow and black Stratford vests on the start line.  

It was an extremely successful morning with Matt Burdus-Cook winning the race in 36:52 and U17 Maisie-Joy Spriggs coming in as first female in 43:12, a full 2mins 45seconds ahead of the 2nd placed female– a fantastic double for Stratford AC.  In an exciting sibling race, U20 Caleb Spriggs finished in 43:10, just 2 seconds ahead of  sister Maisie-Joy.

Second home for Stratford after Matt , in what was a superb race for the younger members of the club was U17  Noah Balchin in 41:42, closely followed by David Teasdale (1st in his age category) in 41:49 and Max Ross in a PB of 41:53.  Caleb and Maisie-Joy were next, closely followed by James Coy with a PB of 43:45 and Sam Wilks (43:52).  Stratford  had 4 finishers in the top 10 and 8 in the top 20.

Ade Mason finished next having been told to take it easy by the physio but still finishing in a speedy 44:37, followed by William Dyche (45:36), Joe Lee (45:48), James Purdy in a PB of 45:15 and Robert Gisbourne (46:23).  With his son and daughter having finished 14th and 15th, Chris Spriggs was next to finish in 49:18.

Fern Horden was both 2nd in her age category and 2nd female finisher for Stratford (49:58) with Dan Hutchings hot on her heels (50:07).  Kimberley Lee was the 3^rd female for the club in a PB of 50:30.

 The next three Stratford runners home were all making their winter series debut – Suzie Ross (50:59), Emily Carr (52:42), and Camilla Cresswell (53:27).  Mark Barker was next (54:17) followed by Clare Goodwin 2nd in her age category and making her debut Winter Series race (54:42) and Stuart Evans (54:43).

The yellow and black vests kept coming with Suzi Graham (55:21), Yumiko Turner (55:57) and Pip Bell (56:42).  Phil Brennan was next in 57:21 and 1st in his age category, then Richard Hartwell (59:44) followed by Lisa Lambourn in 1:00:17 (a PB and target to get below the hour in this series!). 

Lisa was followed by Simon Curran who is more at home sprinting on the track (1:02:08).  In their debut Winter Series race, Karen Gisbourne and Emma Lee finished next in 1:03:36 and 1:03:49 respectively.  Chris Bloomfield (1:05:38), Daniel Hodgkin (1:06:28), Clare Eynon (1:09:51), Sandie Owens (1:17:48) and finally Karen Jackson (1:22:25)  completed the Stratford entries.  

Every finisher was rewarded with a pack of sausages handed out by Stratford AC members and many celebrated with bacon sandwiches, cakes and coffee by the wonderful Emily and team.  Only four more races to earn the much-coveted Tempo hoody.  With a fantastic turnout of 37 Stratford AC runners and some fantastically supportive and vocal marshals from the club, you can expect to see a sea of hoodies in a new colour (what colour will it be???) in the Spring.

241 runners completed the race.

This is my first race report and I have gleaned PB’s from several sources – apologies for any omissions or mistakes!