Tyne Bridge Harriers Golden Mile, 10th May 2014

Tyne Bridge Harriers’ Golden Mile event held today at the Churchill track was given a plug on his programme by Chris Evans of all people. Don’t know if it made much difference to attendance but there were representatives of several clubs including Blyth, Tynedale , NSP and myself representing Claremont, all of us hoping that the rain would hold off.
There were junior events beforehand with the little ones clearly enjoying racing round two laps. Then the older juniors joined the seniors for 5 graded heats of One Mile with the slower runners first. The seeding was effective, especially in the faster races, with the fields keeping quite compact and a lot of changing positions before the final sprints to the line.

I’d guessed I’d do a six minute mile and when I’d paid my £3 entry noticed several others had plumped for that time. So I was a little worried that I found myself in second place after 350m and lapping in rather a fast time. Fortunately I was able to tuck in behind the leader and drafted for the next 2 laps – it was a bit blowy down the back straight. At the bell the leader started to pull away and I tried to keep relaxed and fast. This worked until the last bend when I was overtaken despite my acceleration and I finished 3rd of 10. I knew I’d beaten 6 minutes but had to wait for the results to be posted on-line http://www.tynebridgeharriers.com/2014/05/10/golden-mile-chris-graham-chris-evans-race/

So I’m going to bed pretty pleased. It was a good event,friendly, quite informal but with proper timekeepers and race protocol. The baking was excellent and cheap for restoring the calories. I was bit surprised not to have any company from Claremont considering the many who have done the Quayside mile. A mile on the track is definitely faster and you’ll be running with (against) runners of similar speed. A good change from Parkrun and likely to give you confidence to run that bit harder in other races, finding that extra gear.

Date for the Diary Monday 16th June: Open Mile races at Monkton Stadium – track races start from 7pm

Result: Race 2- Alasdair Wilson Craw (M60) 5.43.5 3rd of 10

Race 5 – Sparrow Morley (Tyne Bridge) 4.37.1

Alasdair Wilson Craw