What do you look for in a race? Because if it’s value for money, the one I did yesterday must score close to 100%. The Cabbage Patch 10 is a long-standing fixture in the racing calendar, back after a year’s absence. It’s 10 miles take you through the streets of Twickenham, along the river and back through Richmond. The quality of the field is outstanding - the winner ran those 10 miles in 48min and 16sec and an amazing 54 runners (out of a total field of 1459) who came in under an hour. One of them our very own David aka ID4238703 - brilliant run David!
For your race entry fee, you get a very well marshalled and organised race, a long-sleeve technical T-shirt, a medal, a Mars Bar, bananas, water and (though I missed this) apparently a free beer at mile nine. Now that, surely, is good value. In fact I should have stopped for a beer as it would have made my last mile far more pleasant - having been struggling with a bug all week I felt pretty grim after about five miles, and though I’ve always loved this race, it was pretty tough going.
Of course, while at times I felt like those 10 miles were 100, some people actually did run 100 miles this weekend. In one go. Take a (possibly rather weary) bow Cat Simpson, third lady, 11th overall and 100 miles in 17hours and 24 minutes. Absolutely mind-blowing to me.
And one final congratulations - this time not to a Guardian running blog club member, but to Ed Whitlock, the astonishing Masters runner who yesterday ran a sub-4 marathon. Not impressed? He’s 85 years old. He was running sub-3 over the age of 70 - still the only man to do so. Read more about him here - it’s worth 10 minutes over a cuppa, I promise.
