North Shields Poly Grand Prix Final Event, 24th March 2015
The final event in the 8 race series was only 2 weeks after the previous one, so seemed to come around quickly. The weather was fairly kind for the 7 runners who were the remnants of Claremont’s injury ravaged squad – it was dry and neither too cold nor too windy. As I also had a much better handicap than for the previous race, I had no excuses and thought I could go for a good time. It started well, I was staying with the others in my handicap group and we gradually started to catch the other runners. I had a good downhill to the promenade overtaking several runners and maintained my position back up the slope. I could see Heather ahead, made her my target and duly caught her with about 1km to go. However she had obviously paced herself better than me, stayed on my shoulder until about 200m to go then left me for dead. As usual, I’d gone off too fast. One day I will learn how to run negative splits! I still thought that I’d had a good run and had in fact taken a massive 4 seconds off my previous time.
Afterwards there was a buffet and presentations with loads of prizes donated by Start Fitness. There was even a prize for the most consistent Claremont Road Runner. This was Heather who can now choose any pair of trainers from Start Fitness – not bad at all.
This was my first Grand Prix series and overall I enjoyed it. Overall I enjoyed my first NS Poly Grand Prix. Even though I usually didn’t want to leave the house to head for the coast on a cold, dark night, I always enjoyed the race and the general atmosphere once I was there – very friendly and well-organised. They are now taking entries for the 2015/16 series and if you haven’t tried it before, it is well worth considering.
The results on the night were:
| Name | GP8 Position | Time | Overall Position |
| Alasdair Wilson-Craw | 20 | 23:40 | 133 |
| Paul Robinson | 33 | 21:53 | 33 |
| Heather Steel | 51 | 23:57 | 28 |
| Tom Tinsley | 59 | 23:14 | 27 |
| Ben Hull | 64 | 27:06 | 52 |
| Nina Jensen | 93 | 27:20 | 113 |
| Kenny McCormack | 100 | 30:48 | 145 |
I can only find overall positions for those that ran on the night, so unfortunately can’t report for all of us. The Claremont teams did not do brilliantly, finishing 21st and 23rd out of 25, but that is not the point!
For naybody interested, the Claremont times and positions for all 8 racescan be found here.
