Doing the soft-shoe shuffle

THE cross-country season is over for another winter. My battered and soggy shoes, twice their normal weight due to clinging mud, are awaiting a final appointment with an unforgiving wire-brush.

Normally said shoes could now expect an eight-month holiday before being called upon again - and the chance to dry out properly at last. 

But the sad news this February is that I have to tell them I’m letting them go. They’ve run their last gloopy field-edge. Splashed though their final ditch. Climbed their final rain-lashed hillock.

The only journey left is the one to that celestial cross-country course in the sky. They’ve served me well over several years, but the right sole is now parting company with its upper, and that gaping hole will only get bigger. 

Trouble is, they are still very comfortable to wear and their laces remain bright and bushy-tailed (a lovely shade of orange, in fact). But it’s not enough to save them. Replacements have already been purchased, and now wait patiently in the boot of the car for season 2014-15 to start.

At least the departing shoes are being retired on a high note. For the first time in 25 years of running cross-country league meetings, I’ve managed to complete a full set in a single season. All six of the 53-12 League races (staged in a region south of Ipswich and north of Chelmsford) have been done, every one a toughie in this winter of record-breaking wetness.

A quarter of a century has certainly whizzed by, for I remember clearly sampling the delights of this regional league for the first time back in 1989. In those days I ran for Ipswich JAFFA and we took part in races at Halstead and Tiptree as ‘guests’ before signing up properly the following season. 

In those days the competition was known as the Today’s Runner League, having been initiated by the magazine of that name, and kept this identity until 2000. Then along came sports retailers Harper’s Intersport to lend their name, and things continued to thrive despite a fire ripping through the Tudor building which housed the local Harper’s shop in Colchester, meaning it had to be demolished. For a while it became the Sweatshop League, and then current incumbents 53-12, led by director and runner Ed Page, took over as sponsors in 2005.

This week I asked a few old stagers if they had any idea how many races there had been since it all started in the 1980s. I've been reliably informed the very first one was at Colchester (Abbey Fields) in November 1986. Eight years later the same venue played host to the league's 50th race. By this time I'd moved house several times and was now running in the colours of Tiptree Road Runners. As there has been around six races per season ever since, I assume we are currently hovering around the 170 mark.  

 

My 'Old Grey Training Log' tells me I’ve managed to run 84 of them, but I suspect there's a good number of people who can claim to have gone beyond the 100 mark. Take Brian Rogers, for example. Now here's a man who once gave the great Peter Elliott a run for his money (I saw it with my own eyes on a track in Lanzarote!). Ipswich stalwart Brian has clocked up 116 league races (not counting a couple of DNFs) and his range of finishing positions goes from 2nd to 100th. There must be similar stories from the other clubs too.

The races are always sociable, enjoyable affairs, with a higher proportion of female participation than in the traditional Saturday league events, and beginners are welcomed.

Similar 8k courses have been used throughout the past 25-years-plus, and a similar number of us turn out year after year, so that means progress and fitness is easy to monitor. I think I must have peaked early, because it’s been downhill nearly all the way for me. I finished in the top 30 in my first half-dozen appearances, but these days am lucky to get into the first 130!

There have been calls recently for cross-country to be included in future Winter Olympics to give the sport a much-needed boost. But judging by recent race turnouts it’s doing pretty well anyway:  the National Champs were held at the weekend in Nottingham and attracted a total of 10,000 athletes and spectators into Wollaton Park.

In the spirit of this blog, instead of naming the winners I’d like to congratulate the two heroes who filled the LAST positions in the  men’s and women’s races - both of whom trailed home at least four minutes after the rest of the huge fields. I hope the marshals on the finish line did them the courtesy of not clearing up and vanishing before they came in!

Take a bow Andrew Morgan of Dartford (1657th of 1657 senior men) and Ruby Ooi of Stourbridge (708th out of 708 senior women). Andrew and Ruby are both in their sixties and race regularly, undaunted by usually finishing at the wrong end of the results list.

 

They are the type who don’t ask or expect much, so the least they deserve is a cheer from other runners kind enough to stay behind. Long may that sense of comradeship continue. 

(Website: www.robhadgraft.com)
(Twitter:  @RobHadgraft)

Over the Orwell Bridge in 1982 - and under it in 2014!

1982's Orwell Bridge half-marathon

A BRAND new 8k cross-country course was unveiled in glorious winter sunshine on Sunday in the shadow of that spectacular edifice on Ipswich’s southern outskirts, the Orwell Bridge.

And as the long line of brightly-coloured runners snaked underneath Europe’s biggest stretch of pre-stressed concrete, I found myself experiencing a sudden dose of déjà vu.

For as I settled into my usual mid-pack position, it suddenly dawned on me this was the first time I’d run in this neck of the woods in more than 31 years!  Back in November 1982 - along with 1,054 others – I’d run over the Orwell Bridge in a half-marathon staged specifically to mark the bridge’s completion.

At that point it hadn’t yet opened to traffic and there was great excitement over this truly amazing feat of engineering that had taken the previous three years to build.  Measuring the course prior to the half-marathon was apparently quite an adventure - David Smith of JAFFA had to climb on scaffolding as the bridge was unfinished then and didn’t quite meet in the middle!

But all was ready on race-day and the pounding of 2,100 running feet certainly gave it a good testing. It was a very cold and very hilly task for all of us, but thankfully the wind was fairly light and nobody was blown into the river below as far as I can recall.

Your correspondent
crosses the bridge in '82

 My employers back then, the Ipswich Evening Star newspaper, sponsored the race and I was still very much a beginner to the sport – still raw enough to be making serious clothing errors (as the picture here proves!).  It was my very first ‘proper’ road race and a group of us from the office were really only taking part for a laugh.   

But it must have been a positive experience, for here I am 31 years later, complete with strapped-up arthritic knee and 27,000 miles on the clock, still chalking up two or three races per month and unable to kick the habit.

Over 1,000 participants at a half-marathon wasn’t particularly unusual in the 1980s, and Suffolk Police reckoned an even higher figure lined the hard shoulder to watch the race. There was traffic chaos in the area and race-starter the Mayor of Ipswich was among those trapped, which delayed proceedings considerably.

The exuberance of youth helped me gallop over the 13.1 miles of virgin dual carriageway in 90 minutes exactly. We went from the Nacton interchange, over the 1,200 metre bridge, to the A12 link and back again. I recall being quite pleased with my time, especially given the fact I was only running once a week at the time, mainly to keep fit for football.  Up ahead we all gazed in wonder at lanky Andy Girling who cruised to victory in 66 minutes.

Nine-hundred-and-fifty races and three decades later, I was back this weekend and wondering how many other Orwell Bridge Half-Marathon Veterans were running in the cross-country contest alongside me. I reckon there must have been one or two, and possibly a few more among the Ipswich JAFFA officials organising the event.

JAFFA have certainly come up trumps with this new course for the annual 53-12 League fixture they always stage. The response to their choice of venue was a record-sized field, I am told. 

And max respect to the Suffolk Food Hall for welcoming hordes of muddy runners onto their premises for the important pre- and post-race activities. 

Back in 1982, the concept of a food hall – a sort of delicatessen sited in the countryside – would have been quite alien to us all. The delicacies on sale this Sunday were rarely, if ever, seen in Suffolk in 1982, I can tell you.  It was bread and dripping back then, plus the odd turnip from a nearby field if we were lucky (Apologies - I think I may have imagined that last bit. Blame post-run tiredness – I am 58 you know).

Runners gather near the bridge again . . . January 2014

* Rob Hadgraft's books on runners of yesteryear now available as e-books for Kindle at £4.99 each. (Via Amazon or www.robhadgraft.com)

   

     

   

Ruby’s big adventure at the Chelmsford 10k

Ruby, Ruby, Rubaayyy..…..

I've always liked a good coincidence.  And here’s one that amused me last week . . . .

As some of you may know, on Sunday 24th November 1963 a shady character called Jack Ruby famously stepped out of a crowd and shot dead the man accused of assassinating President Kennedy. 

Well, EXACTLY 50 years later – almost to the hour – on Sunday 24^th November 2013, there was another incident which caused the names ‘Jack’ and ‘Ruby’ to become newsworthy (in Essex road-running circles anyway!).

Nobody was shot, and this incident didn’t make global headlines, but a runner called Jack and a dog called Ruby did achieve their 15 minutes of fame on social media . . .

Our story begins a couple of miles into last Sunday’s annual Chelmsford 10k road race.  As the field of 408 runners approached the tiny village of Chignall Smealy (stop sniggering, it really is called that), three dogs in a nearby house got highly excited and came scampering out to see what the fuss was about. Chignall Smealy is in a quiet rural area and the sound of 816 feet pounding the lanes outside was highly unusual and of great doggy interest.

The trio of hounds shot out into the Mashbury Road, not far from the village church, ignoring their owner’s desperate calls. Two of them were soon rounded up, but one of them – a beagle called Ruby – couldn’t resist joining the race and was soon galloping happily alongside the runners.  She seemed particularly attracted to the yellow-and-white kit of local club Springfield Striders (48 of them in this race), and one of their members in particular - 27-year-old Jack Willis.

Now Jack is a decent runner (last month alone he managed an 18-minute Parkrun, 63mins at the Tiptree 10 and under 83mins at the Essex half-marathon),  but little Ruby had no trouble keeping pace with him.  Of course, she did have the advantage of four legs.

Jack and the others around him admired Ruby’s pluck and stamina, but as the miles started to go by and she showed no sign of stopping, concern for her safety began to grow.

Through Chignall Smealy they went, along winding Mashbury Road and towards Chignall St James past various farms. Her canine friends may have long since gone, but Ruby seemed determined to get to the finish line at the Melbourne Park Athletics Centre.

At first it had all been quite amusing – but gradually the smiles began to disappear as it dawned on the runners that before long they would be back in busy Chelmsford and little Ruby would be in serious danger from the traffic.

Jack took up the story later: “The dog ran with everyone for a good few miles and was loving it. It wouldn't have enjoyed it so much when we headed back into town though. So when I came to the next marshal point, I picked the dog up and asked one of the spectators to give me a lift back to where the dog lived. While I hadn't actually seen it escape, I knew roughly where it was, so it wasn't too difficult to find the house and the owner was very grateful."

Other runners noticed Jack shuttling back and forth and a couple of his clubmates admitted they thought he had got into some sort of trouble and was either lost or injured.  But Jack - presumably now covered  in dog hair as well as his own sweat - was dropped back at the roadside by the sympathetic spectator, and simply rejoined the race.

He says he wasn’t too upset at having to sacrifice a good time, and eventually came home in 45mins 18secs anyway, a clocking well short of his best but still good enough to finish in the top half of the 400-plus field!

Many runners had noticed Jack with the dog in his arms and his ‘Good Samaritan’ act attracted much praise afterwards, particularly on his club’s Facebook page:  “God knows where the dog would have ended up without Jack doing what he did” said one colleague.  Another Springfield Strider reported that Ruby’s owners had been in touch with the club and were keen to contact Jack to thank him properly. He certqinly did agreat job - for it would have been very easy to simply treat Ruby as someone else's problem and get on with his race.

Jack modestly admitted he hadn’t been running at his best when Ruby intervened - but the chance of a PB might have been a possibility.  If he keeps a training log it would be interesting to know what he has pencilled in there to explain a finish-time eight minutes slower than expected!   

* 16 books by Rob Hadgraft available via www.robhadgraft.com  

The training run that involved singing ‘Jerusalem’

* MANLY BEACH: a great place to train barefoot, but beware the rugby mobs

STRANGE things can happen on training runs. Exactly ten years ago today I remember setting out for a steady six-miler, only to have it brought to a juddering halt by the triumphant World Cup-winning England rugby squad!

Yes, Jonny Wilkinson, Matt Dawson, Ben Cohen, Clive Woodward and all the rest of them. In the flesh. They were all there, all to blame.

The entire track-suited squad, complete with trophy, big smiles and huge hangovers, emerged from their seafront hotel a couple of miles north of Sydney at exactly the moment I was passing.  There was mayhem as they staggered onto their team bus, which was quickly surrounded by swarms of English fans who appeared from nowhere.

Most of the fans had spent the last few beer-sodden hours getting wet in the rain and slowly making their way from the Telstra Stadium a few miles away to this hotel on Manly Beach, intent on prolonging the celebrations and serenading their heroes. But I was a mere passer-by, only out for a training run, now well and truly enmeshed in the middle of the mob.

I’d not come to Australia specifically to see the World Cup – its timing was just a happy accident - but now that I found myself just inches from the England heroes behind the tinted glass windows of their bus, I had little alternative but to join in raucous choruses of 'Swing Low Sweet Chariot' and ‘Jerusalem'.  I normally have little interest in the oval ball game, but sticking it up the Aussies in their own backyard doesn’t happen often so I'd been as pleased as anyone when Jason Robinson went over for that try and Jonny Wilko drop-kicked the winning points the previous day.

It quickly became clear my training run would have to be abandoned, right outside the foyer of the Manly Beach Pacific Hotel – so suddenly in fact I barely had time to even press the pause button on my Garmin.

Mrs C-O-R and I were in this neck of the woods to do a few months of house-sitting and dog-sitting for our good friends, the surfer dudes Bev and John, who were off on a lengthy charity trek around the edge of NSW, pedalling and kayaking all the way. My plan was to spend this time writing my book on old-time running champion Alf Shrubb, and getting in some good quality training in the fabulous surroundings of Sydney’s Northern beaches.

Regular readers of this blog will not be surprised to find that injury, as well as rugby celebrations, curtailed my training a little, but overall the sun, sea and ambience were good for healing purposes and I returned to the UK in better shape than when I left it!  The book also went well and, being in Australia, I was able to get introduced to the great runner Ron Clarke who kindly agreed to write its Foreword.  

Sydney and its hinterland is of course a great place to be if you like the outdoor life, but despite its sporting bent I was surprised at how few races I was able to find during our five-month stay. Maybe I was looking in the wrong places, but all I could find in the December was a 10k and 5k being staged in the city as part of the Sydney Marathon Clinic programme, and then the following month Australia Day was marked by an 8k contest in Centennial Park.  

Races may have been scarce, but great training routes were plentiful - and the superb Manly Beach option proved much easier to negotiate once Jonny and the boys had gone home with the cup!

575 acres, 323 runners, 646 mud-caked shoes

As if the water hazard wasn’t enough, I got a thumb in the eye
from Witham runner Claire! Or maybe the camera is telling fibs?

SHORTLY before he expired, Johnny Cash recorded a haunting song about a man who goes around taking names.  A man who decides who to free and who to blame.

Chelmsford’s answer to that man made his annual appearance in Hylands Park last weekend, exercising his strange and dangerous powers over 323 runners who assembled obediently for their Sunday morning punishment in this green corner of the city.

The man’s name is Kevin and, where the 53-12 Cross-Country League is concerned, he shows no mercy. If the 575 acres of Hylands Park has any muddy or flooded bits, he will find them with his inner water diviner and divert his race route through them.  Not past them, but right through the middle of them.

Kevin’s favourite thing is positioning a marshal to block access to a wooden bridge, thus forcing incredulous runners away and into the black morass below.  No, I take that back. His favourite thing is actually forcing runners into steep-sided water-filled ditches for a few dozen yards, allowing them to escape and then directing them back down again.

But the amazing thing is not the way Kevin deliberately makes his friends and rivals suffer, it’s more the way that 323 of us willingly turn out on a sunny Sunday morning to submit to his whims.

Despite knowing in advance that vast amounts of mud and pungent water would be involved, bright colourful shoes and glittering new running kit was in abundance at the start.  Well, this was the beginning of a new season and the sun was out after all. My clubmate Paula was one of several rather optimistically sporting new, bright pink footwear. And the hordes from the Witham club turned up in dazzling new tops, although at least these were largely black – the same colour as the mudpools that  awaited us.

In the mayhem of the start area, the signal to begin racing involved a curious sound, reminiscent of a police siren or a burglar alarm.  Or perhaps Kevin had found a wah-wah pedal, discarded here by a guitarist at the last V-Festival? Made a change from someone shouting "Go"' anyway.

My club Tiptree Road Runners (just 63 members) are now competing in Pool ‘A’ of the league after promotion last winter. Alongside the bigger clubs from Ipswich, Colchester and Chelmsford, we feel a bit like the equivalent of Crystal Palace, cannon fodder arriving wide-eyed in the Premier League. But we believe we have the spirit not to sink out of our depth. Oh yes. No ditch is too deep for this plucky squad. Typical of the Tiptree M.O. was the member who’d been rendered unfit to run by a Norfolk beer festival, but willing to compensate by recording results and taking photos. Not forgetting another member who chalked up a good result despite running with only one eye in working order following surgery.

The sight of Ipswich JAFFA’s international runner Helen Davies floating over the mud with apparent ease was a thing of wonder, and tended to make the rest of us feel clumsy and pedestrian. Some of the myriad photos published on social media afterwards had a similar effect. Those gentle but relentless slopes inside Hylands Park look remarkably benign in photos and, of course, the pictures don’t do justice to the fierce winds either.

646 muddy feet will have needed considerable attention in the shower on Sunday afternoon (apart from Helen’s perhaps). But most of them should be clean and mud-free again by the time we point them towards farmland just outside Harwich on December 1, which is the 53-12 League’s next instalment.  The race director that day won’t be Mudmeister Kevin, but the punishment will no doubt be just as potent.

* Rob Hadgraft’s five published books on running are now available as e-books for Kindle at just £4.99 each, in addition to paperback format.   Use this link:   Rob Hadgraft's running books on Amazon  or, alternatively:  www.robhadgraft.com    

  

And now for something completely different....

"Go careful out there folks!"

THERE was a runner in flip-flops, a runner saving a drowning man, and runners lost on a remote sea wall. There were even a few snakes knocking about.

Welcome to Saltmarsh75!

The event more than lived up to its promise as the newest and wackiest event on the running calendar in Eastern England. Around 100 heroic figures wound their way, sometimes painfully, up 75 miles of the Essex coast via its myriad estuaries and marshy inlets. Some ran, some walked, some were attached to dogs.

Many finished their ordeal wide-eyed, telling tales of remote, silent stretches of sea wall where they didn’t see any other form of life for aeons.  Luckily the sun shone brightly otherwise all those war-time pillboxes, abandoned Land Rovers and other mysterious remnants along the Dengie Peninsula would have seemed downright spooky.

The silence was broken only by the cries of seabirds and puffing and wheezing of the weary travellers, but there did come a point when the sound of female swearing filled the big Essex sky. In the Dengie nobody hears you scream, but this incident happened over the water near the vast metropolis of Tollesbury.  Tiptree Road Runners’ very own Jo Roblin is not cowed by a marathon or a triathlon, but when it comes to snakes crossing her path, decorum and restraint goes right out of the window.  Her sudden surge of leg speed when the ‘anaconda’ made its appearance was unprecedented.

Jo bravely foiled the evil snake, but in the hero stakes it would be hard to top the efforts of Adam Richardson, another Tiptree runner.  Adam popped up at various places throughout the two-day event, playing a support role to girlfriend Maxine, who spent an awe-inspiring 20 hours and 33 minutes on her feet in order to finish. Adam’s presence at a spot near the Goldhanger checkpoint was particularly apposite – for here he saved someone from drowning!

In case you think I’m overdoing the hyperbole, I am assured the story is true. The man who narrowly avoided a watery grave had in fact gone into the water to pull his dog out of danger, but got into difficulties himself. Growing more tired by the second, he was unable to pull himself out and Adam swooped to the rescue, hauling him clear of danger. Apart from being wet through and exhausted, man and dog were apparently none the worse for the adventure. Now Adam is one of our club’s most promising runners, and by all accounts a decent carpenter too, but his skill-list definitely doesn’t include swimming (like many a runner – we have heavy legs, you know), so his actions were all the more praiseworthy.

Not quite as heroic as Adam were the quartet of lead runners heading out of Steeple at the start of Day 2 of Saltmarsh75. This group included yours truly (it’s a bloody long time since I was in a leading pack, I can tell you). Convinced we were supposed to head along the coastal path to Maylandsea (for that’s what it says on the tin), we nonchalantly ignored our written route instructions and made for the sea wall on the edge of the Blackwater estuary. Wrong.

This section had been deemed unfit for human passage by the race organisers and they’d switched the route. Which we would have known had we read our instructions, of course. In our defence, encouraging us on our way was an old chap who looked to all intents like a race marshal, but turned out to be plain old Joe Public (or it might have been Fred Bloggs, I’m not quite sure).

The lack of a hi-vis jacket on his person should have made us suspicious, but the way he waved his arms and pointed us towards the sea wall meant we had no reason to suspect he was any of the following: (1) the local village idiot; (b) an over-enthusiastic ex-traffic cop; (3) a race saboteur; (4) a daft old trout.

  

I suspect the best explanation for his actions is the one from an academic source – deep in the bowels of Essex University – from where another of my club colleagues, Paula Rothero, has posited the theory that the man was in fact a personification of cartoon character ‘Wile E.Coyote’.  Some of you will recall that Wile was the feckless creature in the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoon shorts, the character who constantly tried and failed to foil the progress of Road Runner (‘beep beep’). See what Paula is getting at there?

Anyway, those of us who ran Saltmarsh as mere minions in a relay team are now genuflecting in wonderment at the achievement of the brave 39 master athletes who managed to cover every single mile of the 76.35 over two days - especially club colleagues James Haskey-Jones (8th) and Tracy Harrington (10th and first female).

Congrats also to organiser Roy Read and his team.  Saltmarsh75 was long, it was tough, it was thoroughly mental. But it was undoubtedly a big success.

* Rob Hadgraft’s five published books on running are now available as e-books for Kindle at just £4.99 each, in addition to paperback format.   Use this link:   Rob Hadgraft's running books on Amazon  or, alternatively:  www.robhadgraft.com    

    

A quick poppy rekki

* Best to check both ways . . . . 

BAD-tempered horses, frightened pensioners and high-speed trains. Just three of the hazards you don’t expect on a gentle run across the Essex countryside.

All I had planned for Sunday morning was a quiet test-run for my latest injury; a very low-key reconnoitre of my allocated stage on the forthcoming Essex Way Relay. ‘Reconnoitre’ is a tricky word to say, let alone spell, so luckily my clubmate Tina has introduced a new term for us to use: ‘Rekki’.

When gingerly doing a ‘rekki’ with a sore ankle, you probably don’t need your run to be incident-packed. On the other hand, when things start kicking off you do tend to forget about the wretched injury, which might actually be helpful.

Anyway, Stage 8 of the Relay is an eight-mile jaunt from chocolate-box village Dedham, past the magnificent folly of Mistley Tower, and up to Bradfield. They give you written route instructions, but you can also look for the little red poppy motifs that are pinned to signposts. My former neighbour Germaine Greer led the campaign to make the poppy the official flower of Essex, so in her honour I like to look for these signs rather than fiddle with paperwork.

With my injury-hit lower legs encased in enough strapping and medical gear to supply a small hospital, I bade farewell to the silent occupants of Dedham cemetery recalling the instructions to turn left after finding the “red dog loo”.  The first hazard presented itself less than 400 metres away. It was nothing to do with my injury, or canine toileting, but a big sign that warned: “Don’t touch the horses – strangles has been found in this area.”

Strangles is apparently a nasty contagious disease that can give horses a scabby face, runny nose and depression.  And guess what was blocking my path to a kissing gate? A large scabby-faced nag, face covered in flies and looking thoroughly depressed with life.  

To use the gate without touching him would have been impossible, so I vaulted a barbed wire fence further along, at which point I spotted an elderly couple cowering to the rear of the horse, desperately wondering how to get through the gate in one piece. I heroically tried to entice the horse towards me, to allow them free passage, but it failed to work.  Depressed horses tend not to do what you ask. 

Eventually the old folk scurried off to another corner of the field to find a different road to freedom. Let’s hope they were successful and found their way back to Dedham and a nice tea shop with a free table inside. When you’re old and shaky, a cup of tea will usually sort you out (so I’ve been told).

As the miles ticked slowly by I found my troublesome Achilles was coping better than expected. This was due, I presume, to the Incrediwear sock support recommended to me, which was snugly encasing the affected area.  It’s made of bamboo charcoal and germanium, which sound bizarre ingredients to find in a sock, but there you go.  

This magic sock helped speed me onwards and I galloped like a horse without strangles as I came upon the grassy slope which takes you down and over a railway line. I reached the safety of the other side just seconds before the 12.32 from Liverpool Street to Manningtree thundered by.  You have to keep your wits about you on the Essex Way.

My truncated ‘rekki’ of Stage 8 ended as planned beside an ice-cream van on the banks of the River Stour.  I’d swerved all the diseased horses, electric fences and speeding trains, and, what’s more, the injury felt OK. It was time to spend my lottery winnings of the previous day (£10 of your British pounds) in quiet celebration.

Talking of celebrations, a remarkable tale has emerged from the running club down the A12, our friends Springfield Striders.

A few days ago their chairman Kevin received a phone  call from a stranger hundreds of miles away who’d found a camera beside a road somewhere in Hampshire. He’d examined its contents and found pictures of a woman giving birth and of a man running along in a Springfield vest (not in the same shot, I hasten to add!).

The pictures looked rather intimate and precious, so he took the trouble to track down Springfield and its chairman to see if they had clues as to the camera’s owner.  Now our Kevin is well known as a man who loves to see fellow runners suffer in the ditches and rivers of Essex, but this weekend he proved he actually has a heart of gold. He dropped everything and quickly posted news of his phone-call on social media in an attempt to get to the bottom of the mystery.

Within mere minutes his message was seen by Simon, a fellow Striders runner. Simon has a Hampshire-based brother, recently did a race down there in his club vest, and his sister-in-law recently gave birth. Bingo. Job done!

It was a positive result for social media, and also a good advert for always wearing your club vest when running on foreign soil . . . .

* Rob Hadgraft’s five published books on running are now available as e-books for Kindle at just £4.99 each, in addition to paperback format.   Use this link:   Rob Hadgraft's running books on Amazon  or, alternatively:  www.robhadgraft.com