Great Run Local – Gibside Report

By Terry Welsh

On Sunday I went and ran in the Gibside 2k.

And I won it.

No kidding. A race. Open to all.

I don’t want to be big headed.

But I went flying into the lead right from the start. I bestrode Gibside like a Colossus, leaving all of my rivals struggling in my wake. I tore down the finishing strait, finishing over a full minute ahead of the second place runner. I also smashed the course record.

All true.

The Gibside 2k is a new Great Local Run , organized by Brendan Fosters brigade. It is their answer to Park Run. The races are on Sunday mornings. There is a 2k as well as a 5k. Gibside is the first in the north east.

At the start of my 2k there were six runners. There were 19 in the 5k. I started more slowly than a Claremont slow pack. But I was soon on my own, at the head of the field. I didn’t speed up, and I was never challenged, apart from being passed by runners on the 5K course, a race where Sumanth and Robert shone.

My finishing time for 2k was 10.51. The worst 2k I have ever run. If I use race time comparison software

http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/general/rws-race-time-predictor/1681.html

I find that I would have run 37.39 in the Claremont Quayside Handicap.

The worst clock time recorded by a Claremont Runner in the October Handicap was 36.13.

So if you record the worst clock time in a Claremont handicap, consider that you would probably wop the living daylights out of the opposition in a Brendan Foster 2k.

My wrist band didn’t record, so I’m not on their website yet, but they will put it right after my protest.

Why do something as ludicrously stupid run in such a weak event and swank about winning?

For me it goes like this.

I have never won a race. I have tried, before Sunday, to win 404 races. My previous best result was second in a grade E 800 metres at Cleckheaton on the day the Pope got shot. ( Cleckheaton grades A-E, fastest in the A grade ) .

If you have been within boring distance of me this winter you will know that I have not been able to run properly since getting a knee injury in November. I have got something called patellar fermacular dysfunction and I am a weekly customer at Newcastle Sports Injury Clinic, and will soon be calling on the NHS.

You will know that runners who can’t get out and run are not happy people. There are birds in the sky but you don’t hear them singing. Your brain feels it is full of thick oxtail soup with great big back lumps in it.

I read Sumanth’s write up on Gibside and daftly thought I would go and test the leg out in the 2k. No way could I manage 5k.

What a boost.

Crossing the line in the winter sun,it seemed as if the dark thick oxtail soup had been pumped out of one ear and pepsi cola poured into my brain through another. I now just feel that I will recover this summer and get back to enjoying running and racing again. I’m looking forward to it.

I wouldn’t do a Brendan Foster 2k if you are fit and well. You need to be out there pushing for best times. But if you are at a stage where things are wrong and will not come right, all seems as black as the hour of night—get out there and win one for Claremont.

Gibside 2k February 16th

1st Terry Welsh ( Claremont ) 10.51