Tag: Mark Taylor

On Bank Holiday Monday 27th August I found myself adjudicating and therefore running the Canterbury Half Marathon.

For some reason I could not remember which course this was but on arriving and looking at the paperwork and the course plan I realised it was the half which ran out on the lanes to Petham and Waltham goes over the Pilgrims Way (Chartham Downs Road) dropping down and up to Petham where the course does a loop out round to Waltham before returning to Petham. Then at 10 / 11 miles it goes up, up over the Pilgrims way again. Once over this hill it is then a more or less cruise downhill for the last two miles to an uphill finish. It is a lovely run but certainly not flat and one of those courses where you seem to be mostly running uphill.

I was very lucky to be given a complimentary entry for the Harvel 5 this year as it was sold out in 12hrs when entries opened. This year was the 20th Anniversary of the first running of the event back in 1999. I ran it in 1999 and actually won it as a M45 in 28.05, hence the complimentary entry and Race No.1 for this year’s race.

It was the usual friendly event with stalls and beer tent on the green and being on a Saturday afternoon with a start time of 2pm there was lots of families as well as runners.

On Sunday whilst other Harriers were running in Westminster and Edinburgh I was adjudicating the Rye 10 held in the nearby village of Peasmarsh. As it was a race I had not run previously I entered and was the only Harrier running it apart from Duncan Ralph who was running in a Tonbridge AC vest.

Nice-Work organised the race and published it as a challenging 10 mile race. Sunday morning was rather warm and the humidity was high due to the previous night’s storm. Having turned up I was having second thoughts as to whether it was a good idea or not to run it. Anyway I collected my number which was funnily enough number 120. So I thought 120 mins that’s 8 minute a mile pace I’ll go for that.

On Sunday morning whilst other Harriers were running at Dartford I was adjudicating the Lydd 20 mile and Half Marathon. It turned out to be a big race with over a thousand runners setting off out of 1300 entries probably due to the fact that so many races were cancelled the previous weekend.

Joining me on the start line on this pan flat course were Ollie Smeed, Andy Goodman, Kate Naylor and Steve Wellstead. Myself, Ollie and Andy were running the half and Kate and Steve the 20 mile. Kate was pacing a friend round the 20 miles.

25th Turkey Run

On Sunday 10th Dec I adjudicated at the Maidstone Harriers Turkey Run
with the start and finish at East Malling Research Centre,
unfortunately missing our own ‘run out lunch’.