Computer Services Agency Team Pursuit

6th January 2008

Report by Val Brown

This is the second time this race has been based from Cymych Leisure Centre, having moved from the old course at Trefach. The weather forecast looked much more promising than last year’s howling gales and torrential rain. We were greeted to cold but fairly calm conditions.

The format is the same as it always has been, teams sending runners off at 20-second intervals – the idea is to try to catch runners from opposing teams. For those of you who have never done this course, the first two miles lull you into a false sense of security with a gentle down hill bias. Then you get a couple of miles of undulations before THE hill at about 5 miles, which seems to go on for about a mile!  I must admit to walking up a significant length of it!

We gathered before the race not quite knowing who was going to be running for which team since a number of people had dropped out due to injury and illness. In the end, the club entered two teams – a male team and a mixed team, with a couple of other members running for Crymych.

Rhiannon, who stood in at the last minute set off first for the “B” team, intending to “get around” the course nursing a calf injury, but still managed a remarkable time of 52.21. Other runners for that team were Karen and Elen who finished in exactly the same time of 56.46. Terry had an excellent race, and is showing good form for his place in the Worlds later in the year, and finished in 46th place overall in a time of 52.51. Richard completed the ensemble, looking strong at the end in a time of 49.02.

The “A” team consisted of Julian, Mike, Darren, Patrick and Lee. The team finished in an impressive 4th place overall out of a total of 19 teams.

All in all, the race was well organised – and a big thanks has to go to Pat and Roland for that. Lets hope that next year we are again able to manage to pull together a girls team and maybe a couple of men’s teams to support this event.

Results for club members are shown below.

Position	Name	Time
7	Patrick Martin	43.49
10	Lee Wells	44.50
19	Darren Evans	46.41
30	Richard Brown	49.02
33	Mike George	49.38
36	Julian Rutherford	50.40
44	Rhiannon Ace	52.21
46	Terry Gover	52.51
57	Mark Davies	56.20
60	Karen Corcoran	56.46
61	Elen Jones	56.46
64	Dave Howells	57.42
67	Val Brown	58.12