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Canix Uk Championships

The Canix National Championships: Cheltenham Race Course, 17th May 2009.

 

5.15km 2nd 16:00.7

 

Canix, for those that don't know is 'running with dogs', its great fun and we have enjoyed every event we have taken part in. it has seen has win at Crufts and travel to the European Championships where we placed 11th. My trusted side kick is my 2 year old springer 'Prefontaine' yes named after the late, great Steve Prefontaine. My dog loves to run so when we heard about these races it seemed too good to miss. 

last year we won this even but only by 2 seconds from Gary Crone and Spangle, a day after i had ran a 8:10 3km, so was in good shape. This year my fitness was not as good, but i still hoped 'Pre' might pull me round to victory. There is a new kid on the block called Tom Ellis, and he has won most events, but we had one the last two events we had competed in before i went down ill. 

The race is run in time trial situation, so you go at 15second intervals, so yo never quite know who has won till the results come out. So i had my garmin on for a measure of pace, so was pleased to see a 5;12 first mile and even better with a 5:05 second mile. By then we where out in front, but Tim started behind, so it was a case of not slowing. The third mile was 4:59 and final time of 16:00, a whopping 47seconds quicker than last year! It though wasn't enough as the results showed 16:00.1 to 16:00.7 in favour of Tim. A loss by 0.6 seconds, it could be argued that rounding up the times would be fairer as no electronic timers or graded officials, but that would make me sound like a sore loser!

Still, i was really pleased with the time on a difficult cross country course and showed some kind of fitness is coming back. Did a nice 3mile warm down with Peter Emmerson, from Coventry and caught up with all my friends i have not seen in a while. Also we done to Pre, as thats his fastest UK xc race, i see a bright future for the boy!