Well that's another Firefighters Memorial Walk completed. My time in mind to finish this year was a similar time to last year .... 5hrs 12mins. At Ballaugh all was going well, even through Jurby my time was still up on where I wanted to be, as Dale Farquhar, Dave Walker and I rounded the cone, in that order, half way up the Jurby Church access lane. By the time we reached bride church 21miles in I had dropped to 6th, I had started to feel myself slowing and the watch confirmed this. The leader was now 5 minutes ahead and 5th place was a couple of minutes up the road. As I rounded the turn to head to Andreas I felt a slight pull in my calf, From there on I suffered with a cramp which became almost a show stopper at St Judes. I spent a bit of time there lay on the ground with Christine trying her best to stretch and massage the cramp out. I continued on past the Ginger Hall where I was passed by Andy Dawson and soon after Tony Edwards, who himself had struggled with cramp earlier on in the race, this dropped me to 8th. Around a mile outside Ramsey I managed to reel them both back in, Tony first and then Andy myself and Andy worked to pull a small gap on Tony, then with around half a mile to go I managed to drop Andy to regain 6th at the finish. With 5 minutes covering 1st to 6th at Bride I had lost another 18 minutes to the leader at the line, finishing a total of 23 minutes behind. Those 18 minutes were lost in only 10 miles so unfortunately the cramp had played its part in my finish time. Stew Jones, another member of the training group also suffered in the mid stages with cramp which also plagued him till the finish after starting really well running 6th early on. It was a good day out for the training group with 4 of the top 10 places being filled by the team.
The event was won by Dave Walker for the second year in succession with Karen Chiarello 2nd Overall / 1st Lady and Mike Bonney 3rd. The top 10 at the finish looked like this ...
| Name Bride Ramsey |
| 1 | 180 | David Walker | 03:25:42 [1] | | 05:15:09 [1] | | 05:15:09 | | | |
| 2 | 29 | Karen Chiarello | 03:28:31 [5] | | 05:17:31 [2] | | 05:17:31 | | | |
| 3 | 12 | Michael Bonney | 03:27:05 [3] | | 05:20:13 [3] | | 05:20:13 | | | |
| 4 | 60 | Dale Farquhar | 03:26:24 [2] | | 05:22:09 [4] | | 05:22:09 | | | |
| 5 | 100 | Aaron Kneale | 03:27:36 [4] | | 05:23:16 [5] | | 05:23:16 | | | |
| 6 | 143 | James Quirk | 03:30:18 [6] | | 05:37:52 [6] | | 05:37:52 | | | |
| 7 | 47 | Andrew Dawson | 03:38:39 [8] | | 05:39:00 [7] | | 05:39:00 | | | |
| 8 | 56 | Tony Edwards | 03:38:34 [7] | | 05:39:05 [8] | | 05:39:05 | | | |
| 9 | 119 | Pete Miller | 03:44:31 [11] | | 05:42:17 [9] | | 05:42:17 | | | |
10
| 9 | Ray Beattie | 03:43:03 [9] | | 05:44:09 [10] | |
05:44:09
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Am I happy with 6th? ........ Yes ........... would I have preferred to finish 6th with a time closer to the leaders? ........ of course. I learnt a bit today about over doing it on the salts and maybe not eating enough carbs, both factors in the onset of my cramp I think. My Achilles, although sore at times, gave no real issue and feels ok tonight as I'm writing this. I have had it before after a race when its felt as if it has gone back 6 months to when it was at its worst so I'm happy enough with that.
Massive congrats to Dave on another Win and well done to everyone who took part whether finishing at Bride or Ramsey. It was tuff out there today weather wise and definitely not overcast as predicted.
Congrats must also go to Richard Gerrard, running another strong London Marathon today and also Sharon Cain on setting a PB in what she said were tuff conditions in London.
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