Too Much Water at Wadenhoe

Mark Pryor / 25.01.2010

After a long cold snap, a fairly rapid thaw and heavy rain the day before, the River Nene burst it’s banks and the Environment Agency ‘closed the river’ to navigation so at the last minute we had to cancel the quad. With everyone transfering over to the run/bike/run this gave us our largest entry yet.

Race day dawned, bright, sunny and calm (very unusual for our Wadenhoe races!)

The race 2 course was, in many ways more challenging than the average. Mainly because of the saturated ground and normally dry stream close to the start flowing quite nicely and spilling over further down. The revamped course which has cut down the cycle laps from 8 to 6 now takes the competitors through this stream 4 times on each lap.

The run start was, as usual pretty frantic as competitors jostled for position before the first stile. Colin Peck was already building a good lead ahead of Troy Garrity with Wadenhoe regulars Steve Giles and Patrick Schalbetter biding their time in the pack a few places behind. On the second run lap Colin had maintained his lead but he was anxiously looking behind as perhaps he knew his bike leg might not be so strong. Indeed the gap was gradually whittled down and Troy clawed his way past Colin. Also on the bike leg, Patrick and Steve were working their way through the field passing Marcus Shields who also put in an quick first run lap of under 6 minutes.

In fact the 2nd run lap had already taken its toll on all the runners, most posting around 40 -60 seconds slower on that 2nd lap.

The fasted bike lap of the day was posted by Patrick Schlabetter again in under 6 minutes and Patrick went on to claim the first MV40 position.

Troy finished in 1.04.01, Colin in 1.04.55 with Steve and Patrick next in 1.06.39 and 1.06.45 respectively.

The ladies race was also closely contested between Roz Giles and Naomi Brewer, Naomi taking just 17 seconds out of Roz on the first run leg. Roz proved too strong on the bike however and even a good second run leg by Naomi wasnt enough and Roz finished over a minute ahead.

First vet 50 was Richard Stagg in an excellent 1.19.01 Other notable performances were from our under 18’s – Sam Blakerman (a Wadenhoe stalwart already!) finishing in 1 21.24 and Rachel Borrows in 1.46.06. A fantastic first time achievement.

Last but by no means least congratulations to Ann Gales who finished this gruelling course and raised a fantastic sum of £2500 for charity.

The next race in the series is on 7th Feb!