John Robertson & Pete Flewitt (who probably ran a little faster than the advised 5 mph)
Congratulations to Pete Flewitt and John Robertson, who finished second overall and first veterans in the Gut Buster 10 mile and 10K races respectively.
Both members tackled the 10 mile race last year, with Pete finishing tenth (fourth veteran) and John almost exactly a minute behind him in 11th. For John, last year’s race represented an important milestone: “This is the event that got me back into running again at the same time last year and led me to join ESM again”.
Pete definitely set out this year to finish higher up the field, and his time of 60:58 was also a massive 12 minutes quicker than in 2017.
John wasn’t tackling the same distance, and something tells me he’ll be back next year to try and win it with the benefit of hindsight: “I was leading the 10k at the junction where the two routes split and felt good at that point. I checked my watch at 9k and was all set for the finish. Alas, the course is actually 10.5k and I was undone! The guy who beat me has raced it before and was about 20 seconds ahead going into the last muddy field. I just couldn’t quite catch him on the path back up to the farm”.
As you might imagine from the name, this course is not for the faint-hearted. Pete describes it as a “tough old event… a sticky-mud affair, running over a farmer’s ploughed land, through a ford, across a stream, along tough undulating country paths and fields, latched kissing gates and over stiles. Pretty much everything that could be thrown at you really!”
John frames it in slightly more appealing terms: “despite being hard work in places, it’s a really good run and in impressive surroundings. There’s even the ruins of a Roman city on the route”.
This race takes place every year between Christmas and New Year and sounds like a great workout to keep you fit during that festive gap in the cross country schedule. Perhaps the County XC Champs in early January wouldn’t seem quite so daunting if we all put this in our diaries for 2019?
Results for the 10 miler are here
Results for the 10K are here