Four Crofties turned out for the latest edition of the Batch Bash, under a (sky) blue sky and warm conditions. A little different to last year, I’m told! 139 senior runners set off, after the enthusiastic juniors had completed their races.
It’s only 3 miles, and the first 500 yards are tarmac, so what’s hard about that? Three hills, meaning in all about 1,000′ ascent, but nevertheless a lot that’s fairly runnable in between, and a Gary-friendly descent down to the finish.
Matt Yapp won the race, for the second year on the trot, with Aidan just a few places behind. Tim J was our first runner home, 82nd in 36.49, a fine result especially considering the miles he’s clocked up recently. Next came the duelling duo, of me and Gary. As always, Gary had the better start, but I caught him half way up the first hill and it took him till just before the foot of Novers, the third hill, to overtake me, only for me to pass him again before the top and spend the whole of the descent expecting him to fly past me. Even on the finishing straight I couldn’t ease off, metaphorically flogging myself to get to the line ‘first’ (in fact I was 110th, irrelevant though in our particular duel because there are only two competitors!). Gary was just 13 seconds behind, in 43.35. Steph again won her W55 age category prize, finishing 119th, in 46.58.
Apparently the organisers of the summer series have decided not make any awards to those over 65 (unless of course they can beat those in younger age groups), which may be logical (last night there were only 10 over 65s, covering 6 different age categories) but sad that older runners are rather elbowed out.
