Wednesday 19 July 2017

Mob Club Run!

Hello blog lovers
Our captains
Steve and Emily

Yesterday was our annual mob match with the Orpies!  Just for your information........ WE WON! I am just a little bit proud of our club right now! And more importantly, every group was well represented from our club!  Group 1 through to group 11, and we all made a difference!  That is what mob match means! There were 174 PWR's and 85 Orpies and 26 BVAC who joined as guests.  Which means that 85 members of our club were in with the scoring, and all of the Orpies runners were in the scoring.  How it works is the first person back gets 1 point, the second get 2 points, the third 3 points, etc etc.  The team with the least amount of points win!  I know, it's strange, but it works!  All our 85 of our fastest runners were of course in the 'scoring zone' and the whole of the Orpies were in the scoring zone, which of course means all their slower runners collecting more points! Confused yet, well I was for years!  But I think I now get it!  We over ran our friendly rivals, with a huge sea of black and white vests, and we retain the cup!

So to the run itself.

All 285 of us squeezed on to the start line in the middle of the path at Jubilee park, the marshals were all set all over the place, the registration team were either running or doing other marshaling duties, DiscoRich had taken over the mic from Illustrious leader who was our tail runner.  And the count down began, 3, 2, 1, GO!  The front runners flew from the start the rest of us funnelled through on the path and the the race began!  I was running next to Claudia and another lady, "Oh good, you're here, you can pace us!" said Claudia.  I don't think she realises just how well her running has come on!  "I think you will be in front of me" I said, and she just gave a little laugh!  I don't think she believed me!  Tracy and Kay were behind, me, and the rest of the group 1's and 2's were scattered through the pack.
It's only us, at the back of the pack!

The weather had been threatening to rain, I felt just a couple of 'spits't of rain but thankfully that was all there was, I can't think of anything worse than turning up to the Bickley Manor, after a warm 5k run and wet through from the rain! (of course there is always celebratory drinks after a mob match!)  I was running along with Selena, one of my group 1 members,  her running is coming along just brilliantly, by the way. it is also her first mob match.  She just didn't know what to expect and was a little apprehensive.  But we ran along together, chatting, we were doing quite well actually.  There were people passing us, but not that many as we were at the back anyway!

The first mile was done, through some lovely paths through Jubilee park, I do like this route.  The first of the front runners came passed us, Roger Vilardel, a PWR followed by the second front runner, and Orpie, Matthew Steere.  I couldn't quite believe it, we hadn't even finished our first lap, (there were two laps of the park) and there they were, almost at the end of their run!  Talk about speedsters. We had the first two ladies back too, in 26th postion was Rachel Bently and Hannah Robertson was 36th postion!

All I thought about is that ass soon as we pass the finish funnel at least we won't be in the way of the finishers!  We got to the finish funnel with cheers and whoops and we passed it by, of course, because we still had one more lap to do.  Me and Selena were still together chatting away, pacing each other.  I kept her going when she was flagging and she kept me going when I was flagging!

But there did came a point I though, right, I need to do this, I need to see if I can run by myself in a race situation, and not 'use' the excuse of  'I shall run with you, if you want".  I know I have been hiding behind that for quite some time.  Maybe by running mojo is getting strong again, because some where along that second lap Selena fell behind.  I kept going.  I so wanted to go back and encourage her to keep on going, but I really wanted to see if I could do this to!  So I kept on running!

I managed to catch up to three people, I think they were ORR because on of then had already completed and was just running along with the other two ladies to keep them going!  I was kind of 'slip streaming' at their heels.  I was feeling pretty good and was doing some good running, but then I did flag a bit and fell behind, I was once again running by myself, being cheered on my our fabulous marshals of course.  Without them it just wouldn't be the same!

Just little ol' me!

Just the last couple of corners, I could hear the crowd at the finish!  I just fixed my mind to just run, no walking, just run.  The last path, the path where we started seemed to stretch out before me.  I could hear my name being called out, the music from the speaker that we had set up and I just looked straight ahead to the finish funnel.  There were people milling about, people cheering and Kev on the floor with his camera!  No jumping this time, I want to power on in to the finish line and I just went for it, with what I had left.  I still think I could have pushed myself a bit more, but I didn't fancy puking in front of everyone!

Look at that concentration!
Running for the funnel

Mob match done!  I felt proud of myself, I stopped my Garmin and noticed that I had finished quicker than my parkrun on Saturday!  I can live with that!  After that it was all down to the Manor for celebratory drinks and the presentation of the cup!

Our mens and ladies captains with the trophy!
As I said before, it really is a run for all our groups, and just as before, look at this brill picture, taken by Kev, group 11 runner (our mens captain) with me and Tracy, group 1 runners, we all won this trophy together as a fantastic club!



Not to forget the fantastic social afterwards, standing side by side with our friendly rivals


Here's my geeky stats for the run,

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