On a rare sunny Sunday morning, the Deighton household took a trip to the seaside for the 10k race in the Worthing Run Fest.
Although it has an early race start time (8:15am!) and an hour plus journey time, the event has a big race feel about it and is really well organised, with much of the route in sight of the sea.
A nearly flat course offers the chance of good times and I managed to sneak a PB with a 45:27 clocking.
Margaret had a great run to finish in 60:16 and pick up 3rd place in her age category.
Official 10k race results show a male winner in 15 minutes, which is mightily impressive but probably wrong and Kate Natkiel of Brighton Phoenix (36:15).
Pre race we had bumped into Ian Mulheirn and Jason Gough, who were both down for the Half Marathon, which started shortly after the 10k.
Ian had a terrific run, as part of his Edinburgh Marathon build up, finishing in 27th place in a PB of 1:22:20, while Jason ran 1:28:15, with unconfirmed reports that his deckchair stayed in situ for the whole race.
Special mention to Jason’s girlfriend, Phoebe, who ran 2:15 in her debut HM, preparing for the Harriers trip to the Medoc Marathon in September.
Half Marathon Race winners were Simon Heath (78:15) of Brighton Phoenix and Amelia Brown (84:02) from Worthing & District Harriers.
I would definitely recommend the event to anyone looking for a flat course and a chance of a PB, as it has a great atmosphere, including ex 10,000m world record holder and running legend, David Bedford being race starter and marshal.
It also has a very generous goody bag, as I managed to pick up a medal, race t-shirt, last years race t-shirt, 2 cans of water, a water bottle, a neck buff, three protein balls, a bar of chocolate, a can of sugar free lemon & lime fizz and a cap….shame there was no bag!
Andrew Deighton