Just move the Wesham 10K

The Mid. Lancs. Cross Country

Sefton Park, Liverpool, 25th November 2006

 

I’m sorry. I‘m a little late with my report this time. However, in my defence there hasn’t exactly been any pressure to get the report done. You see I’ve been watching our club web site and our Brenda hasn’t been putting stuff on there as fast as she usually does.

 

There are some reasons behind this:

  • The sheer volume of material to deal with.
  • The club magazine is to put together, (available soon from all good newsagents and Amazon)
  • Brenda has not been well recently. (You’ll recall we sorted the Burnley report from our sick beds.

 

BUT, the main reason Brenda has been away from the computer is ………………. CHRISTMAS SHOPPING! Yes, our much loved web mistress has been neglecting us to go CHRISTMAS SHOPPING! I did mine in the January sales so as not to interfere with the Cross Country reports.

 

(Not at all true – I haven’t even started my shopping yet!!!  Pray tell me when I have I had the chance? Brenda.)

 

What do you mean; you wish I’d go Christmas Shopping instead of writing reports????

 

Anyway I digress.

 

This was a very early start to get ready for the race.  Was on the course at 6am with Andy and Sally Yelland to set up the course and we were all done by 8.30 am. It was only then we were informed that the Wesham 10K was NOT incorporating the Mid. Lancs. Cross Country and that it was taking place in Liverpool!

 

With the race taking place at 2.30pm and the Wesham 10K starting at 11am, it called for fast running if you were going to make it to both. That meant I would not be troubling the results people at Liverpool. It also meant that for the second fixture in a row, erecting the tent would be left to our fast lads.

 

A look at the results shows we had 12 men out, 8 of whom completed the 10K in the morning. Unfortunately we had no ladies at Liverpool on account of the tight schedule to get from one venue to the other.

 

I’ve done a bit of investigating regarding the difficulty of getting our ladies team to Liverpool whilst still competing at the Wesham 10K.

 

I’ve come up with a few options:

 

  • Get the ladies to run faster so they finish in around 35 or 36 minutes
  • Be a little more creative with our team selection. Alex, Charlie and Lee are also ladies names so that’s three sorted! If we add Elsie (L C), and Kaylee (K. Lee), we have a full compliment of ladies and still have enough men to make a full men’s team!
  • Don’t let the ladies run in our 10K so they are available for Liverpool. OK, so they miss out on supporting their own club race and scoring points for the Championship and they wouldn’t be able to win the team prize. But, hey, at least they’d be able to get muddy!

 

There is another solution and it’s so obvious I’m amazed we didn’t think of this before. It took an external observer to tell me what had been staring us in the face all along.

 

We move the Wesham 10K! It’s brilliant in its simplicity. We simply take the 21 year old Wesham 10K away from its traditional Saturday time and we run it on a different day – preferably a Sunday. That way it will never clash with the Liverpool fixture that we have now used for 6 years.

 

But what of the Club Dinner Dance? Come on, keep up, we move that too!

 

I know it’s just awesome how this is just falling into place isn’t it? The slight difficulty I have encountered is the date and time and I think I have a solution here too.

 

I suggest the third Sunday in June at 2pm or there’s the third Sunday in October. I can’t see any problem moving the Freckleton Half Marathon or Green Drive 5 to accommodate this simple move, can you????

Another option would be to have a Mid. Lancs. Cross Country in the month of December, but this is a non-starter because as I mentioned right at the start, there’s the Christmas Shopping to be done!

 

This will be my last report before Christmas so Happy Easter everyone!

 

Written by: Brian Porter

Submitted: 2nd December 2006

Edited by: Brenda J Earnshaw WRR Editor