With Dave and Pat Evans trapped by high winds in the Lakes. Roy Gunnett and Greg Smith took the helm and, against the odds, managed to ensure that the Dick Maxwell and Xmas race went ahead as planned. You will note there are no live photos of the race itself. Circumstances did not allow.

Roy takes up the story.

Dick Maxwell 10k at Simister Saturday 7th December

As a result of Storm Darragh peaking at the same time as the race …..numbers were somewhat down on normal for the Dick Maxwell 10k.

A revised course was used for the first time for this race. The revision was made to improve the safety of the course by replacing the normal start, which is a pinch point for traffic, with one 294 metres further down the road where the road is wider.

The turnaround point in the park at the 2.5k mark was extended by the same 294 metres to cater for this.

Final confirmation of these measurements was made ahead of the race by Greg and Roy.

Six walkers toed the line for the start.

Right from the gun Nigel Shaw, in fine style,  went into the lead.

By the end of the first 5k lap Nigel extended his lead to 4 minutes and went through in 31:44, followed by Roy Gunnett in 35:53, Phil McCullagh and Steven Wilde together in 37:10, Joe Hardy in 38:18 and Greg Smith in 39:54.

Greg pulled out at this stage.

In the second half Nigel continued to pull away and won by over 10 mins in an excellent 63:00.

Roy in second place was nearly beaten by a very fast finishing Steve.

Weatherwise it was a race of two halves …..for the first half the weather was not too bad, but for the second half Storm Darragh really hit with heavy rain and very strong gusty winds.

A huge thankyou, (especially in the atrocious conditions) must be made to the officials who made the race possible, namely Chris Harvey (Starter/finisher and timekeeper) and Sailash Shah (marshall at the turnround).

Following the race everyone was glad to get into the warm and dry hall (made even warmer by the new central heating boiler).

Tea, mince pies and Christmas cake were extremely welcome.

All the walkers came away with a prize,  courtesy to the generosity of Chris.

The general consensus was the new course was a success and it will be used in future. It was suggested that to improve safety even further we should use some high visibility road signs denoting that a race is in progress. Roy said he would look into purchasing these on behalf of the club.

Scratch Results

10km

Scratch

1. Nigel Shaw                   63:00 -74.54
2. Roy Gunnett                 73:20 77.25
3. Steven Wilde                73:22 – 71:04
4. Phil McCullagh            73:45 – 67:30
5. Joe Hardy.                    78:10 – 77:21

5km

           Greg Smith.                     39:54

Handicap

1. Phil McCullagh 60:39
2. Steven Wilde 62:55
3. Nigel Shaw 63:00
4. Joe Hardy 66:10
5. Roy Gunnett 67:2

Age-graded

1. Roy Gunnett 77.25%
2. Joe Hardy 77.21%
3. Nigel Shaw 74.54%
4. Steven Wilde 71.04%
5. Phil McCullagh 67.30%