Borders League Birkenhead

In spring we ran a Borders League fixture in Birkenhead Park. And in November we would be back. The League is starting to get repetitive. The reason is that councils are decreasingly likely to give approval to races on public roads. So when you have a venue off them, everyone flocks to them. This time the organising club was Birkenhead AC, which makes sense, but in March it was Wrecsam Tri who were resorting to this park, as Wrexham council was being difficult. It seems Eryri used to do our race in Caernarfon, but have now moved to the Anglesey race track, where the Cybi Striders had already been organising their races. 

Anyway. I had missed the first fixture of the year as it clashed with the Bangor 10k. I was keen to join this time! And we would travel together; Anna and Helen were coming too. 

I drove to Anna’s, picked her up, drove to Conwy, and there we together got into Helen’s car. In Birkenhead we parked up, headed for the loos, did a warm-up and lined up. Jane, of Llandudno 10 mile fame, was there too. And we as Eryri Harriers had enough runners, both male and female, to not get penalty points! 

We started. Initially it was very busy and you were running in a crowd, but I knew that wouldn’t last. Soon enough the field thinned out. I was happily running along. 

Autumnal running 

I was feeling good, and was slowly overtaking people. A young Eryri girl was first. I admit I was thinking about my ranking in the Eryri Harriers Road Running Championships! I also saw Jane, who had outrun me in Llandudno. This time I thought I might actually be faster. And I was. 

I also overtook Robin; a young Harrier. It turned out later he had been out the night before. And slowly we got close to the finish. I saw a woman I thought I could still beat. And I did. And then there was another on in sight. I figured there would be just enough time to pick her off too! I hit a final sprint when I saw strange goings-on by the finish. The race is on paved paths, but the finish is on the grass. With some ribbon, a funnel is created, can you run into that. The actual finish was about 50 m from the path, and then there was another 50m or so in which the admin was done, with numbered tokens and such. But now there was a big queue, and marshals shouting at us to slow down. I had to stop before I even reached the grass. What had happened?

I figure they probably still knew in which order we had come in, but I didn't know if they would be able to give us a time. But that's ok. The whole competition is all about finishing order. So I got my  token and went to where the other harriers were. I had my finishing number registered and had a chat with the other finishers. And when everyone had come in, we did a group picture, and then a cool-down. Then we were ready to go. And the plan was to have a coffee before we would get back to Wales. I also heard what the problem had been; the person with the numbered tokens had dropped them. Oh dear!  That's why it had taken so long to find the correct token for people that there had been a big queue. I was glad it wasn't anything more sinister, like a runner getting unwell right at the finish, or something like that.

 

Club pic

Someone suggested a garden centre, so that's where we went. But it was lunchtime on Sunday, and it was heaving. I don't think the centre was very good at dealing with that. By the time I could finally pay for my coffee it wasn't hot anymore, and it was so busy we couldn't get a table that would fit us all. In the end we were having a coffee only with the people we were car-sharing with anyway. We had had hours to socialise with these! So that part of the day I would easily have skipped. Oh well. 

To my surprise, we did get  results, including times, two days later. I think they just noted the times people were stopped. So for some people, that was tens of meters before the finish. But what could they do. I was quite chuffed; I had done well. My time was good but that might have been because I didn't run the full course. If I had done with that time,  I would have run as fast as I had done in the Abergele 5k, and I don't think that's realistic. But what was undeniable: I had been the fastest woman over 50! In most other races, that is trivial. But this is Borders League. It meant I had beaten both Jane of the Buckley Runners and Louise Blizzard, the lady who had beaten me at the Trentham 10. I was very proud of that! And the Eryri ladies had come first in our division. Success!