Road Season Underway

To kick off the road season, a trio of our leading runners headed to a windy Bath half-marathon and recorded good returns.  Sam Amend placed 8th overall in 78:28; while Fee Maycock won the W45 category in 84:16.Meanwhile, Gus Upton continued his quiet ascent with a run of 71:00, and can look forward to his halfs starting with a '6' before long.Patrick McDougall's 86:00 may appear circumspect, but that discounts the small matter of the previous day's Coastal Half Marathon in Northumberland where he zoomed to a fine 4th/238 on the demanding course in 1:33, only to get thrown out of the race at the finish for insubordination.  His crime was not to have a full inventory from the race's militant checklist (waterproofs, food, whistle, hydration, first aid, foil blanket, head gear, phone and money).  It doesn't say how much money, but our man was found to be penniless at race's end and was booted out before he could explain that if he had really found himself destitute on the cliffs and no gratis help had been forthcoming, that he would have quite happily sold his body to the slave trade.  But no amount of filibustering could save PMcD, and instead he finds himself listed at the bottom as an outcast, with the winos and the flunkeys in the sin bin.  A mistake he'll only make once!Over at the Thanet 20, Hester Barsham-Rolfe placed 7th in a gnarly 2:32:09.