Midland Road Relays at Sutton Park, Birmingham Saturday March 23rd. RESULTS

So what did you do with your spare Saturday Blog? We all could have missed that relay race at Sutton Park at the weekend ….. the snow at Sutton Park was quite deep and the roads in places were totally impassable,  especially at the top of the course which is used by the spectators to run back and forth to view the runners twice on each of their legs. Of course, because there were no runners no spectators bothered to turn up so not a single spectator was trudging back and forth supporting none of their runners during the whole afternoon. Mind you there was little to see besides the snow tumbling down, not even the kids bothered to venture out to sledge! In September and October of last year, the Midland and the National men’s six stage and the women’s four stage didn’t take place at Sutton Park because of the e-collie outbreak amongst the wandering cows of the park, and now the twelve stage hits the snow dust. If this is taken up internationally, we could have the Olympics in 2016 not being stage in any country but Brazil. Or the Olympics not being staged anywhere in the world every three years out of four. Mind you Blog, conditions in Sutton Park, Birmingham were so white over on Saturday, that the Winter Olympics could have been held a year early.

For the Women’s Midland Road Relay however, scheduled for Saturday March 23^rd 2013, not single team turned out on time. It would have been quite impolite to all those aged officials who preferred to stop at home rather than risk hypothermia in the bitterly cold wind, if those runners who didn’t arrive hadn’t been so ungrateful.

 Godiva’s first runner might have been quickly away into the lead had she not slipped into oblivion on the first snow drift and ruined what could have been a close first leg if there had been any runners and she had not started without anyone else to run against. If she had bothered to turn out, she would have had it all her own way. Cool. Taking over for the second relay, Godiva’s young orienteer didn’t fill in at the last minute because our first choice on this leg, like the other six had heard on the local radio the night before that the event had been cancelled and decided to stay in bed. What are the coaches doing to encourage such attitudes? In my day, we would have all turned up and frozen to death without a single murmur of complaint. And we would have not been wearing gloves, nor t-shirts, nor leggings like the wimps do these days. We were men, with a capital ‘M’.

The third leg runner for our team would have blown the field apart because she is so fit. And she is quite a capable runner too. As it was, only the snow and wind were doing the blowing. Working together as a team, they had made the unrunable path by Keepers’ Pool unrunable; so it was extremely fortunate that none of the runners who didn’t turn up, didn’t have to run across that section of the course.

The fourth relay runner didn’t start very fast. Indeed, like all the rest of the team, she didn’t start at all. But in her case it was unforgivable because she only decided not to run at the last minute when she texted the team manager to say that she could not get out of her house because the snow had drifted so deep in her driveway. And she had done the local Park Run that morning.

So with no one else there, the fifth leg athlete might have had it all to do herself. None of the officials who had stayed at home were concerned at the lack of a competitive field and would have encouraged her to the day’s fastest time had they, or even her, been there. But they weren’t and she wasn’t so they didn’t and she wasn’t.

It is stating the obvious Blog, that the runner on our final leg would have really found the last uphill section to the finish difficult. The snow was so deep and underneath the white blanket, the road surface was very slippy indeed. In a tight finish, slipping and sliding would probably have caused adductor, not to mention abductor, problems the next day with the muscles being so stiff from not being used to racing in those conditions.

I think the organisers at the Midland Counties Office have decided to put the event on ice for a while until things have cooled down. Then in the summer they hope that the club runners will take a more responsible attitude to competition and  someone might turn up to relay around around.

                              Colin (writing from an igloo somewhere in Sutton Park, Birmingham)

Photograph Quiz:

Photo no. 143.2:- This is not the Midland Road Relay at Sutton Park on Saturday March 23rd 2013. BUT who is the chappie on the left playing Greta Garbo?