Thanet Coastal 10 & 5 miler

Race report for Thanet Coastal 10 & 5 miler, Sunday 7th December by Holly Ansell (Coastal Striders)

After TRAC turned out in force for the Coastbusters race, Coastal Striders were determined to return the favour and support our annual 10 & 5 mile race with Sporting Events UK.

They then went even further and offered to write up a race report!. Our thanks to Holly Ansell for the report below:

“Whose idea was this for all of us to run in the wind and drizzling rain today?….as the usual saying goes – anything for a medal! (Plus a tshirt as well for the first time this year!) And in this instance being a Christmas one from our lovely friends at TRAC we just simply couldn’t resist.

The Coasties made a much needed annual visit over to Palm Bay for the evermore popular 5 and 10 miler December run (originally named the Alan Green memorial run).

I came into HQ while waiting for my fellow club members to turn up to get my bib and time chip and I was welcomed with open arms by some familiar faces, Jacquie, Julie W and Julie N who were doing their part as volunteers and marshals today, making sure things ran smoothly beforehand. They were all delighted to see me and for me to be doing this report for both Coastal Striders and Thanet Roadrunners from my perspective.

When the others arrived we all gathered round outside on the green to do our Coasties group photo.

The weather started off being not too bad for the time of year but started to become more chilly whilst waiting to be put into our waves. I was in wave 3 with a few of my friends Andy, Margaret, Kate, Lorna and Lauren, just to name but a few awaiting our turn to be called…whilst others like Sarah were in wave 2 or wave 1.

And off we go! all in our staggered waves running, jogging and power walking our way off the green and onto the tarmac towards the left split path going past the pumping station.

Unfortunately I’m by no means the fastest, but I’ve done this race four times in a row to know how this all works and just need to look out for the yellow sign posts. I had a nice tail runner with me in parts of the race named Barry to help me if I needed it.

Little did I know that the route had changed slightly this year and in my opinion amongst others, definitely for the better! Instead of turning around the corner at the Turner Contemporary after coming down the hill….we got to go straight on towards past Margate sands and turn right past the arcade amusements of Dreamland and Wetherspoons, and then finally turning around to go back towards the Turner and behind up the hill! One of the things I always dread!!!! Cramping up my leg calfs. Unlike the first hill at the s bend near the beginning where I managed to shoot off at top speed as quick as I could to get it over with!

Nevertheless I definitely preferred the idea of going out further towards Dreamland before coming back – as opposed to having to do the pump station a second time at the end! A brilliant change of course.

I mostly power walked the course and jogged a bit in between. Going back I was greeted with our great photographer Graham who always does great photos of all the runners, come rain or shine.

What goes up must come down! As I powered my way up the slope/hill towards the green I could hear people from over the other side cheering away and this made me go quicker down the hill on the s bend and to my delight the arrow wasn’t pointing to go near the pump station, it was pointing towards the end near the inflatable arch and Marshalls!

I felt very tired and had a job to pick up my feet on the last few steps but at the same time so pleased and overjoyed to have finished and got a really great medal from Robbie from TRAC and a few photos from him and some of the Marshalls before heading over to congratulate other Coasties.

There were 23 of us today spreading the orange vibes around as we had a great turnout previously for the Coastbusters 10k and 10 miler done earlier in the year thanks to TRAC helping us out.

No PB for me at the finish however I did get a PB on the new part of the course today, definitely something else to smile about.

Many thanks to all of TRAC and Coasties for their support and encouragement with helping me get round the course today including Jacquie, Gary, Cathy with her power up poster board! Just to name a few standing out for us on the course and my Coastie buddy Martin for the amazing high five!

Thanks for reading my special extended race report.”

Holly Ansell (Hols).

TRAC Reflection

TRAC did us proud today – our runners had some great results in both the 5 and 10 mile races – with several pbs. And the support from the marshals and HQ team was amazing – one of the participants asked if Gary Pearse was a local celebrity, he got so much noise! Thanks to everyone who volunteered their time.

Sporting Events were a great partner to us – they took the step to amend the route, in response to feedback from last year and gave their usual professional and friendly support for everyone.

There were 18 TRAC members today who took on the 5 and 10 miler events. Listed below are the results and positions they finished in.

TRAC 5 mile results: (out of 80 runners)

2 Oliver Regan 00:28:04

4 Matt Finch 00:30:58

8 Isobel Tyler 00:37:52 (1st Woman Overall)

35 Gary Pearse 00:49:02

42 Andy Whitnell 00:49:48

63 Sorcha Page 00:56:36

TRAC 10 mile results: (out of 193 runners)

1 Matthew Collyer 00:55:00

4 Daniel Grech 01:03:01

8 Abigail Cardwell 01:04:23

10 Mark Croucher 01:04:32

15 Elly Maggs 1:07:18 (Running for Vegan Runners, and joined TRAC as second claim to support our cross country team)

16 Georgie Judge 01:07:38

17 James Newing 01:08:57

29 Brittany Crombie 01:12:50

37 Claire Greenaway 01:13:53

45 Steven Hawkins 01:15:12

48 Stephen Suttle 01:16:37

60 Craig Thake 01:19:38