Ronnie Walker Saltwell 10k 2012
Well done to the six Claremonters for braving the pouring rain and Graham Leslie for finishing third in the over 60 category.
Report by Bill Milbourne
A word of advice. If you see my name on the entry list, stay in bed. I was injured for Blaydon, glorious sunshine. Felt better so I did the North-eastern. I still can’t talk about that. I aggravated my leg at Hartlepool so I missed glorious sunshine again at Jarrow.
So, a week later, we get to the Saltwell 10K.
The morning started well with a patchy light drizzle but this had turned to proper rain by the time the junior races stated at 11:30. An hour later and we were lined up at the start of the main race in a torrential downpour. I was wearing the traditional bin bag with the intention of throwing it into a bin when I got warmed up.
By the time we got started floodwater was pouring off the site of the old Gateshead College and the road was awash. The path down to the lake was a river and the lake was visibly bigger than when we arrived.
The Saltwell 10K is one of those very clever courses that manage to find a 2 mile off-road route in a relatively small space but this means that glorious downhill swoops are interspersed with tedious uphill grinds into the ice-cold driving rain and all of this ankle deep in a river. And you have to go round three times before the last little loop round the lake to the finish.
I cant improve on the remarks of the organisers
“The results are PROVISIONAL due to the chip timing mats finding themselves submerged by water towards the latter stages of the race”
I never did get warm enough to get rid of that bin-bag
The Claremont contingent were led home by Tom Oliphant in a very creditable time of 42 minutes
The stars were Graham Leslie, who was only 30 seconds behind Archie Jenkins in the over 60 class, and Mary Martin, who was actually first in her age group but had to compete against a host of youngsters in the over 50 class and came joint 4th
29 Tom Oliphant 42 min
124 Graham Leslie 46 min 3rd over 60
197 Bill Milbourne 52 min 14 sec 9th over 60
202 Kenny McCormack 52min 30 sec 10th over 60
216 Mary Martin 53 min 27 sec 4th over 50
260 Debbie McRory 57 min
