15/11/22: The Sunday morning before last, several Torringtonians were coaxed out of bed for ten of the fastest miles in North Devon at the Bideford 10 miler..
Buoyed by competing with Olympic standard athletes of local descent, some of us momentarily thought we were running for Torrington A... Athletics Club as can be illustrated by enthusiastic club member Nick Taylor whose workout analysis showcases the other meaning of ‘descent’!
Once reality had kicked in after about 5 seconds, seeing eventual winner Phil Norman surrounded by a quartet of Bideford Blues already crossing the Iron Bridge as we’d barely turned onto the Quay, the mind could focus on what lay ahead. For most, this meant surpassing the 1:10, 1:20 or 1:30 pacemaker targets on this speedy course, and just generally have a nice time.
After a week of horrible weather, things still didn’t look bright on arrival. Many runners sat in their cars in the pouring rain, questioning their sanity as well as when to open the door to begin their warmups.
Once the starting horn sounded the horrendous morning rain cleared, rewarding runners with blue skies and lovely views of the Taw Torridge estuary when they weren’t looking at tarmac. The course to some runners’ surprise included a hill on exiting East-the-water on the B3233. However, this was no problem for runners of England’s Jerusalem, Torrington AAC, who mostly are resident at 93m above sea level.
The run did turn out to be quite fast. Once the hill was out the way, it was mostly flat or very slightly downhill. A breezy outbound trip through Instow to Yellend culminated at mile 5 where a very jolly marshal said that the sun’s out and that we were halfway. As we turned back onto the Tarka Trail, runners encountered the other meaning of breezy. The slog home ensued, but TAAC member Olivia Jay helped take the pain away on the finish line, cheering the green and white hoops home.
Now, onto business:
.......
Well, the results speak for themselves. The less context, the better.
However, due to some administration error at Power of 10, we cannot seem to gain the National AG 10m rankings for our other club athletes partaking in the race.:
Let’s be honest, though: the times are very good and they’re also probably in their respective AG cat top 500, somewhere.
Well done all. Breezy like Sunday Morning.
