Home » Latest Club News »
Hangover Five, 2 January 2012
The first of the West Sussex Fun Run League’s 2012 events, the ‘Hangover Five’ at Worthing, took place on Monday. Not for the first time in the League’s history, the term ‘fun run’ was hard to justify. The temperature was not too bad at 8C, the wind felt no more than a breeze, and the sun blazed from a blue sky, but the terrain was very tough. After a deceptively easy turn round the green, the runners ploughed up muddy and slippery paths all the way to Cissbury Ring, then ran along a levelish section with puddles just a bit too wide to avoid, then ran down more muddy and slippery paths back to the starting point. On the way back the sun was low and in our eyes so that focusing on the path ahead to anticipate the next puddle or patch of uneven mud became an all-consuming task. There were a number of falls and at least two runners came home bloodied.
Despite all this – or perhaps because of it – it was an exhilarating run. In all 11 Lewes AC runners took part. In the men’s’ race they were Colin Bennett (35th man, 37:43), Andrew Chitty (37th, 37:44), Mat Homewood (40th, 37:58), Dominic Osman-Allu (63rd, 39:39), Gerard Dummett (68th, 40:13), Tony Deacon (99th, 42:14), David Foster (155th, 44:53), and Peter Miller (209th, 50:08), and in the women’s race Catherine Swinson (5th, 41:03), Carole Walters (18th, 44:26) and Stephanie Crespoin (37th, 48:42). The winner of the men’s race was Tom Owens (Shettlestone Harriers) in 29:18, and of the women’s race Susan Scott (Worthing and District Harriers) in 34:50. Both came in more than two minutes ahead of their runners up.
Lewes AC scored a commendable 65 points, putting us in a solid 10th place out of 17 clubs. Since in last year’s race we scored only 9 points, this score also put us straight into the lead in the race for most improved team of the 2012 season. The next race in the League is the Worthing Lido 4 on 29th January.
Full results are available at http://www.westsussexfunrunleague.org.uk/6.html.