RR 10 - Royal Victoria Country Park - 18th April 2007
MARK Le Gassick secured a winning start to this summer's RR10 series.
Despite suffering from sore shins from a spate of 10km races, Mark was in impressive form at the Royal Victoria Country Park in Netley as he held off the challenge of Winchester & District duo Julian Mann, last year's RR10 champion, and Matt West.
The race was delayed by 10 minutes to allow for a late flurry of arriving runners held up by traffic. But on a warm, sunlit evening, conditions were nice and dry for the 4.5 mile multi-lap course on the banks of Southampton Water.
Mark, Julian and Matt broke away from the main pack early on, with Matt, newly arrived from Southampton Running Club, just falling away off the leaders.
Mark, who was just pipped to the RR10 title by the Winchester runner last summer by the narrowest of margins, put down a useful marker with the victory, edging ahead and almost being taken by surprise by the finish close to the chapel.
Stubbington put out their biggest contingent of runners at an RR10 in only our second season of competition with 27 in all - not bad considering several regulars from last year were either involved in final preparations for the London Marathon, or who were involved with the beginner's course.
Chris Hall, wearing a fetching all-white Stubbington vest and Andy Simpson finished in the top ten, and with Ray Gunner (23rd) and a tired Tim Crumpton (38th) completing the scoring, this was a good outing for the Greens.
For the women, Suzy MacGregor led the way with a scorching eighth place, but there was also a fine run from Lynne Spiers in 13th who was making her Stubbington debut. Sarah White in 57th completed the ladies' scoring.
The next round of the RR10 takes place on Wednesday, May 2nd at the Deerleap Enclosure in Ashurst, which is by the Otter & Owl Sanctuary just outside of Totton. Start time is 7.15pm, and if you would like to run please get in touch with Mark Le Gassick at marklegass@sgrac.net just so that we stay within our limit of 30 runners.
Results:
1 Mark Le Gassick
7 Chris Hall
9 Andy Simpson
23 Ray Gunner
38 Tim Crumpton
45 Mike Harper
52 Paul Hammond
60 Malcolm Lavery
66 Mike Bell
67 Richard Simms
71 Gordon Westley
85 Keith Carter
90 Ryan Gunner
92 Tim Sands
99 Neil Jarvis
110 Andy Lee
111 Mark Hindry
145 Gary Littlecott
153 Gilbert Yeates
170 John Simister
8 Suzy MacGregor
13 Lynne Spiers
57 Sarah White
69 Carol Hindry
75 Julia Hunter
76 Suzanne Byrne
84 Liz Hall