A bright sunny morning on the 24th March saw three members of Grantham Running Club taking part in the Keith Hall Memorial 10k road race in the village of Thorney near Peterborough.
A long walk from the hastily re-arranged car park to the race headquarters and start line assisted in the pre-race warm up.
The course is pancake flat and goes through the village centre out into the countryside, but there was a very stiff breeze blowing across the fens, gusting up 35 kmph in places! This made the second half of the race extremely hard work as the out and back course turned directly into a head wind at the halfway stage.
Samuel Jepson was the first finisher for GRC in 20th position with a time of 37:19, splitting 5k at 18:09 it perhaps indicated that the headwind caused a positive split of over a minute!
Robert Howbrook finished in 44:12 and 3rd in his age category. Paul Jepson was the last of the trio to cross the finishing line achieving a time of 51:22 sixth in the same age category.
The triumvirate were still only one week post North Lincs Half Marathon, and so with tired legs, less than favourable conditions, not to mention still in early season all three acquitted themselves excellently, all gaining an age grading of over 70%.
They finished a commendable 10th position in the teams event.
This was a low-key but nonetheless well organised race with over 350 runners, many friendly helpful marshals and personnel to assist and closed roads for the duration of the event.
The race winner was David Hudson of Huntingdonshire AC with a time of 32:35
The first lady was Lucy Mapp, also of Hunts AC in a time of 37:47.
Race report: Paul Jepson
Photo c/o Sam Jepson