14th July 2002

A beautiful sunny day, just the sort of day when you wish you sitting by a pool sipping an exotic cocktail and what are we doing?  Running a race in the middle of the day in a temperature well into the late 80^of!

Still George thought it would be kind to cool Chris Starmer down by throwing a few cups of water over his t-shirt before we started! 

The race got off to a fast start.  I was on the first leg and as we had to run round the field before we got onto the road in full view of everybody, I reckon everybody put on their best show of speed before turning out of sight!  At least this time I didn't have the motorbike following me as being the last runner but come to think of it I didn't see the lead bike either - oh well! 

Lots of windy single track road before running back on to the field and to be polite before passing the baton onto Stuart, I kindly wiped the sweat off the baton onto my vest top - how considerate was that?

My leg was over and it was nice to run where the only buzz you can hear is the bees gathering nectar from the flowering blackberries!

Not everybody had a fantastic run though, Will had a tough time.  I put this down to his detoxing from Uni.  He has been home for a week now and I'm sure the shakes must have started - he let his Mum beat him!  I'm sure if he went night clubbing the night before and downed 6 pints he would have been fine!

A lovely day was had by all and it was nice to relax (after the run) with fellow athletes and enjoy the sun.

The Stowmarket Striders results are:-

Team A - 7th overall out of 19 teams

Team B - 16th overall out of 19 teams