The Grand National "Runners and Riders Special" Part 1

It could be said that the "stage was set" yesterday morning for the 3rd round of my 2017 racing season, coming as it did on the weekend when my mum would have turned 69, on Grand National day, and on the last weekend of the Opera Viva performance season. Indeed, thanks to repairs at Tarbock Island I only got 6 hours of sleep prior to wake-up time of 6:10am which gave me the near-three hours minimum to get all systems go for the Southport Parkrun. This event is approaching its first anniversary and regularly attracts over 200 runners to Hesketh Park, which in turn I'd not visited for over a quarter of a century! But on arrival, complete with Truestart Performance Coffee in my (soon to be limited edition) Vital Events drinks bottle (what was I saying about setting the stage) it became apparent that this would be no ordinary 5k. Unlike Princes in Toxteth or JP's favourite at "Crocky Hall" there are no long straights, just gentle curves around the park perimeter and lots of Monaco Grand Prix stylee tight corners near the lake. The usual obligatory dogs off the leads threatened to disturb the peace (a situation not helped by liberal usage of flying tennis balls - no I hadn't heard that the French Open had been brought forward either) but more cute were the pairs of ducks seemingly in love waddling towards the water!  Once I'd grinned at these little distractions it was time to zen out, listen to the briefing and go to the start line and wait a while for a countdown that never quite came,  just a "GO" to get us underway.

The first four, avec moi, got away round the first long right hander and I was quickly up to third behind the man wearing spacesuit silver, but someone from Blackburn was already on his way to not only an easy win, but also the course record. I shadowed Silver Man around the lake and to the 1km cone before using my lesser weight to pull alongside him on the return to the perimeter path, putting a little distance between us on the descent past the cafe. We climbed once more to start lap 2, before turning right once again for the lake descent and the route of endless corners. It's not easy to get a rhythm here and indeed I can well see why the eventual race winner did his warmup around these specific paths to get his bearings for when it really mattered. By now I was lapping people running and walking with dogs and indeed this might have called for a bit more in the way of "lane arrangement" but the only provision was the boards telling us which way to go on each lap. In the presence of some very weird animals which looked like two miniature albino white seals (on land!) we powered out of the lake section and onto the perimeter once more before beginning the final, shorter lap, where you simply miss the lake and go round the perimeter before turning right at the observatory. By now I was looking quite safe for second place but momentarily lost where the last turn was and had to spin back on myself, costing me about four or five seconds. Still it wouldn't have got me into the sub-18 club as I did the usual YOLO to guarantee myself the runners up spot and hurtled down the hill for a fast finish, completing the course in 18:08 with just enough in hand over Silver Man to get the silver medal for myself!

After that it was time for a day of epic awesomeness on the foodie front. First I went in the park cafe to demolish chocolate fudge cake and a mug of coffee, just like in the olden days. Quite fitting given the place is still styled like something "before my time"; indeed you could easily be in Blackpool or Scarborough. Once I'd astonished the marshals by polishing said cake off and chatted to Keith Lunt about HMCC rides and whether his team needs a helping hand in next year's Mid Lancs cross country (just hedging my bets in case the Manchester league gives me an ASBO) I went to pick some music up for a gig in two weeks' time, then on to Dave Sims' Switchback Cafe in Churchtown. He was there and so was Emma who was astonished to see me there early doors having only exercised for 1088 seconds (not including the warmup mind you). After foolishly discussing today's 140 miler to the Wirral I drove to my dad's house in Formby thinking "I'll be too hungover to complete that distance especially with an 8am start" before heading to the pub to watch the red men win, on to Crosby for the final opera performance of the 2017 season, the a long after show party at Freddie's mansion where lots of food and, yes, Sierra Nevada IPA was consumed. A brilliant day on a perfect date to pull it off. Next up; Clitheroe on Easter Sunday..........

Now for the results, in association with the warm up shoes that got the 1-2, the Asics Gel Pulse:

Distance: 5k
Time: 18:08
Average Speed: 16.54kmh
Dogs: at least a dozen
Ducks: at least two dozen
Grams of Sugar eaten post race: at least a dirty dozen dozen

REJECT OF THE RACE: Dogs

(Especially the one who stood in front of me just as I went to move forward while trying to  read the course map half a hour before the race)

Time to get out on the bike now. Damn where did I put that behind the saddle bottle cage holder?