The Acid Test

My legs are tired but I still managed the stairs at work ok which is always the acid test. I also feel like I’ve got sunburn on my face, either that or wind burn.

The results are in. I just missed the top 1500 out of nearly 12500. Pleased with that.

There’s no doubt Reading was a big success but what of Derby’s Kilomathon which was also on yesterday. We spurned it because firstly it was £45 up from £30 in 2010 and because it was no longer between Nottingham and Derby but had become just a jaunt around the Derby suburbs. Radio Derby said this morning that around a thousand people ran it, which if that’s right, it’s an awful lot down on last year’s entry of over 4000. When the results are posted later it is confirmed that there were only 950 finishers and I bet some of those didn't realise about the route change when they entered.

In addition there were only 92 in the Half Kilomathon. The Half finished at the mid way point of the main race in Stenson and a shuttle bus then took them to the real finish at Moorways Athletics Stadium. Well at least they wouldn’t have needed many buses.

Awful statistics really. The Scottish Kilomathon attracted 1700 entries last year, so the Nottingham to Derby event was their biggest one. It was not a great business decision to tamper too heavily with a race that pulled over 4000 runners and then lose 3000 of them.

Hopefully they'll have learned a lesson, about the price and the route, and they’ll have another go at Nottingham to Derby next year but I doubt it. I’d be surprised if the Kilomathon comes back to Derby after all the grief they’ve had, Radio Derby have made a big thing about a disabled guy who wasn’t allowed to compete.

Dog training again tonight and I come back injured, bleeding from a hand wound. The lengths I go to for that dog’s agility career. Stupid of me to shut my finger in the storeroom door though.

(Monday 21st March)