Guest wins Ryston Runners AC Hancock 5-miler around Downham Market and Wimbotsham

Ryston Runners AC celebrated one of the club’s favourite events of the year on Thursday evening, sandwiched in between some more customary competitive outings.

Named after one of the club’s founder members “The Hancock” (formerly known as “Hancock’s Half Hour”) is a 5-mile yacht handicap event which relies as much on the honesty of the athlete as the wiles of the handicapper (Marlene Simmonds) for a winner to emerge.

First back across the line at the DTSF was a guest runner, Ben Roberts, who covered the multi-terrain course around Downham and Wimbotsham in 44:18.

Fastest run on the night was produced by Dan Guppy (28:46), one of four who broke the 30 minutes of the original race title. Amy Chapman (33:11) was first woman home. A fish and chip and strawberries supper was enjoyed by all after.

The previous night five Ryston members had lined up for the third race in the Wroxham 5K Series. Dan Guppy was first home in 18th place in 16:43.7. Ben Keeley was 32nd in 17:15.6 before Oliver Foxwell recorded a PB of 18:23.3 in 82nd. Ben Foxwell was 159th in 19:44.7. Sadly, for the fifth starter, top M65 Pete Johnson, injured a calf muscle halfway round the course and had to be brought back to race HQ in the support vehicle.

Keeley was back in 5K action a couple of days later when he and Nic Bensley continued their head-to-head battles, this time at the Lord Mayor’s 5K in Norwich, a high-profile event for which applicants have to achieve exacting qualifying standards. Again this time Nic edged the win, running 17:30 for 34th place overall /9th M40+, with Ben three seconds adrift in 37th on a challengingly hilly course.

Also covering 5K at the weekend, Pete and Cath Duhig took part in the Aidemarcha, a prestigious charity event in San Javier in Spain, where Pete, making a cautious return to running after a prolonged layoff, placed 7th in the M65 category with a time around 25:30 while Cath walked faster than any of the W60 runners and completed the course in about 31 minutes, winning a bottle of local wine.

Over 10K at the weekend, Barry Smith ran 44:11 in the Harling 10K to finish 4th in the M50 category. Eight seconds separated the first four M50s, and Barry would have finished ahead of them all had he not suffered a turned ankle at 4.5K. He still finished 28th overall out of 330.

Newmarket was the venue for the second of Eamonn McCusker’s three 10Ks in three weeks. After suffering an injury a couple of weeks ago, on a very undulating course, he was very pleased with a 47-second improvement to 51:48 over his last effort over this distance and leave him hopeful of achieving under 50 minutes at Bungay soon. He just managed a top half finish, 106 out of 223 and 8th out of 14 in the M60+ category.

Holkham Park was the focus of much activity at the weekend, with the Outlaw events.

On Saturday eight Ryston members took on the wet, slippery, hilly 10K multi-terrain running course, over which Oliver and Ben Foxwell took 2nd and 3rd places in the rarely recognised M20-24 category.

Positions and times: 13 O Foxwell 39:18; 22 Kevin Farquhar 41:23; 26 B Foxwell 41:53; 51 Mark Fountain 43:58 (almost 3 mins quicker than last year); 109 Paul Curson 47:25; 559 Charlie Wilson 63:35; 585 Gill Hart 64:17; 681 Georgina Ward 70:24.

The feature event of the weekend was Sunday’s Triathlon, featuring a 1.2-mile swim, 52-mile cycle ride, and half marathon (13.1 miles) run, both individual and team events taking place concurrently. James O’Neill ran the fastest half marathon time (1:16:26) of the whole event, bringing Team O’Neill home in 21st place overall.

Lesley Robins finished 494th overall in 3rd place in the W45 category, despite a cycling mishap. Her finishing time 5:48:25, including running the half marathon in1:53:43. A couple of minutes earlier, Graeme Lesson (M45) was first Ryston member home in 480th place, his total time of 5:46:54 including the half run in 2:03:07.

Mark Rollings (M40) was delighted to finish his debut Tri in 5:35:20, in 366th place overall, with a run time of 1:51:20, while Jeremy Navrady (M50), with whom Mark had covered many training miles, finished 872nd in 6:25:18, of which 2:33:08 was spent running the half marathon.