Handicap league

Race 1 Race 2 Race 3 Leaderboard

Race 4 Race 5 Race 6

Race 7 Race 8 Race 9

Race 10 Race 11 Race 12

Race 1

Sunday 10th February 2008 - 5.8 miles.

Finishing Position	Name	Handicap Time	Race Time	Rate per Mile	Difference
1st	Lance Harris	41.40	38.09	6.35	-3.31
2nd	Jamie Cousins	43.00	40.39	7.01	-2.21
3rd	Matt Anholm	43.00	41.17	7.07	-1.43
4th	Mark Nurse	41.40	40.34	7.00	-1.06
5th	Paul Smith	47.00	46.06	7.57	-0.54
6th	Tony Carter	43.40	43.15	7.27	-0.25
7th	Jeff Copping	48.15	48.06	8.18	-0.09
8th	Tina Anholm	64.00	63.58	11.02	-0.02
9th	Dino Verrecchia	41.40	41.49	7.13	+0.09
10th	Angie Swift	46.25	47.25	8.11	+1.00
11th	Chris Rawlings	43.00	45.32	7.51	+2.32
12th	Kevin Anholm	48.20	51.07	8.49	+2.47
13th	Vito Verrecchia	37.10	40.30	6.59	+3.20
14th	Jim Cranwell	56.30	63.15	10.54	+6.45
15th	Liam Dowling	56.30	63.18	10.55	+6.48

The build up to the first race of a brand new season received plenty of air time on Sky Sports. They talked about nothing else other than Super Sunday and I thought it was rather decent of those nice Sky people to promote our race. Well, what else of any significance in sport was happening that day???

For us humble Withernsea Harriers we have been preparing since the start of the New Year of our “Super Sunday”. There are few local races at this time of the year, so we tend to use our handicap runs to help put a focus on our training. We train every Tuesday and Thursday, meeting at 7.00pm at the lighthouse. We have concentrated up to now on building up our stamina. The speed work comes later on in the Spring. It is important to build good foundations for the busy year ahead. By concentrating on improving our general level of fitness, we will be hopefully in good shape, to tackle all the big local races, which are usually between May and July. We also have 2 members who are running the London Marathon and the longer, less intense sessions help them prepare for this big event.

Our Handicap League starts on the 2nd Sunday in February and runs throughout the year until Grand Final Day in the middle of October. As it’s a long season and probably due the fact it can be a bit nippy for the first race, we usually have a poor turnout for the first handicap event of the season. This year was different. We had a record turnout for this race; with the final figure double what we had last year at this time. This reflects the excellent turnout we have had this year in training. After 6 weeks of solid, hard work, we where all ready and raring to go for the first race of the season.

We couldn’t have picked a better day, weather wise. Glorious sunshine and a breeze that could only be described as gentle, gave us had near perfect conditions to run in. The course was our Hollym to Hompton and back to the finish at The Plough route, which measures 5.8 miles long. The Handicap Committee gave everyone’s average time at this distance as their handicap. The bookies who rarely get it wrong, made the runners training for the London Marathon as favourites and this again proved to be astute bit of business, as 2 of the first 3 home are preparing for London.

The winner was Lance Harris who started at the back of the field and moved serenely through the field to finish over a minute ahead of Jamie Cousins.(who’s a lot quicker than his dad). Lance and Jamie were 2 of 4 new comers, Chris Rawlings and Jim Cranwell being the other 2 debutants. We hope this won’t be their only visit to our handicap races.

In third place was Mathew Anholm, who is also working hard in his preparation for London. Fourth and showing good early season form (for a change) was Mark Nurse. Fifth and sixth where two people who came close to winning last year’s handicap league.

Last season’s runner up Paul Smith, was fifth and Tony Carter who finished 3rd in the league last year, finished sixth. I would expect both these competitors will be up there challenging for the title again this season.

One other item to report. When personally I have reached an age where achieving a personal best is just a distant memory, it is nice to report someone achieving such a feat. Mathew Anholm ran the Brass Monkey ½ marathon on Sunday 20th January in 1 hour 37 mins and thus knocking 1 minute of his previous best time. Sometimes the slog of training for a marathon can be rewarding.

Our next handicap race is on Sunday 2nd March starting at 11.00am from The Plough Inn, Hollym.The route will be 5.8 miles and as always everyone is welcome.