Auldhouse 5k TT - The Twilight Zone

The final Auldhouse 5k Time Trial of the season took place on Thursday evening as darkness rapidly approached. As usual, this final one started and finished in Auldhouse. For once, I remembered to measure out the start line position relative to the finish rather than relying on my failing memory and realised that the start line has been about 50m too far into Auldhouse in recent years, making the course 50m long! Our new start position was just on the edge of Auldhouse and 18 Harriers lined up with no excuses not to record good times as the conditions were windless and dry. We waited for a while before starting but it was clear that Davie Herbertson was not going to turn up this month!

Starting off in dusk, by the time everyone had finished it was pitch dark and a long list of impressive times had been recorded. Fastest time of the night was Andrew Buchanan in 18:34, closely followed by course debutant, Gerry McParland in 18:37 with Mark Saez next in 18:52. However, setting a massive course best (and possibly also a 5k pb), Sharon Gregg was fastest lady in 22:04, almost a full minute faster than her previous best time on this course. Sharon is part of our enthusiastic Chester Marathon training group and is reaping the benefit of the increased volume of training over the past months. To prove the point, training partners Julie Thomson and Lorraine Buchanan also smashed their course bests and 5k pb's with times of 23:55 and 24:36 respectively. Not to be outdone, there were many course bests (and possibly 5k pb's too if everyone could confirm via the PB Award form) amongst the men. Chris McCarron set a course best of 19:26, a couple of minutes faster than he was running last year and 7 seconds faster than last month's time. Geo Ferguson set a pb of 21:40, eclipsing his previous best set in 2016 by 4 seconds and a good 15 seconds faster than any of his runs this season. Richard Lawton improved further on his pb set in the first Auldhouse TT of this season, recording 22:01, another 4 seconds chipped away. There were also a handful of season's best times as shown in the results summary viewable via the menu to the left of the blog. Indeed everyone ran well on the night and earned their post-run refreshment in the Auldhouse Arms!

Thanks to Frances for photographer duties and to Eddie, Joanne, Martin (and Alfie) for supporting. Full results for this final TT are here.