After failing to field a team at the Ryde 10, the Bournemouth AC men were on last chance saloon and needed to get four men out in each of their remaining fixtures to stand a chance of promotion. The problem was that the next fixture, the Salisbury 10, was sold out and they didn’t have four men entered. That meant road runners supremo Rich Nelson had to get on the Hampshire Road Race League number swap page and hope that one became available. In the end it did and Szymon Chojnacki stepped up to complete the scoring team of four.

Always willing to do his bit for the team if needed, even when he’s not fully fit, having Szymon on board was a huge boost for the yellow and blues. He’d come back too soon after the Poznań Marathon last August resulting in him spending quite a while on the side-lines. By the turn of the year he was back running again though and made his return at the Stubbington 10k where he finished in 35:46. Since then he’s been gradually working his way back to full speed and his recent Bouremouth parkrun first place in 17:43 showed he was back in form.

After suffering some recent injury problems, Mike Akers was back in the game and he was glad to be out there racing again. David Pinney was also in the line up and he’d had a decent run at the Wokingham Half Marathon, finishing in 1:26:38. It had been a while since Tom Ralph had taken to the start line of a race but after enjoying the Salisbury 10 last year, he was tempted by the prospect of a second helping.

The Salisbury 10 course had its fair share of undulations but that didn’t stop Szymon running strongly and there were only a couple of splits where he went over 6 minutes per mile and that was only marginally. Finishing in a time of 58:53, Szymon bagged himself a new 10 mile PB beating his Portland 10 time of 59:09 which he set in 2022. That was good enough to put Szymon in 13th place overall and his average pace for the run was 5:51.

With the aim of securing even splits, Mike Akers registered all of them at between 6:19 and 6:39 and that put him in 50th place with a time of 1:05:05. His average pace for the run was 6:28.

 

A minute later, David Pinney arrived to claim 62nd place. He recorded a time of 1:06:04 and paced the run pretty well. His splits were all around 6:30 to 6:40 and his average pace was 6:33. That was a minute and 29 seconds quicker than the time he produced at the Alton 10 last May.

 

Rounding off the scoring team for the Bournemouth AC men, Tom Ralph crossed the line in 1:13:20 which made him 120th male. He was around four minutes slower than he was last year but he felt that was a fair reflection on his current state of fitness.

Unfortunately that was only enough to put them in 3rd place behind Farnham Runners and Totten RC who are leading the way for the season so far. Hedge End had also moved above Bournemouth AC in the Men’s Second Division and they finished 5th which puts the two clubs in joint 3rd on league scores so far.

Southampton man Richard Waldron picked up the win in 54:20 which put him six seconds ahead of Dan Poynting of City of Salisbury who was 2nd. James Perrett of Alton was 3rd in 55:42 and Sean Egan of Totten took 4th in 55:35.

Cassie Thorp of City of Portsmouth ran incredibly well to finish 5th overall in a time of 56:49 and that put her well over four minutes ahead of her nearest female rival. That was Tamsin Anderson of Winchester who came 28th in 1:01:10.

In the First Division, City of Salisbury took advantage of being on home turf to take the win, with Denmead Striders 2nd and Andover 3rd. Alton Runners were 4th and Lordshill were 5th but they still occupy the top two positions for the season so far.

It was a close call but City of Salisbury also won in the top division for the women, just ahead of Liss RC. Denmead Striders were 3rd and Hedge End were 4th and they currently occupy the top two positions in the Women’s First Division.

The next Hampshire Road League race will be the Alton Ten which takes place on 12th May. It will need to be a very strong end to the season for the Bournemouth AC men if they are to gain promotion to the top flight but it isn’t out of the question that they could claw back the deficit between themselves and Totten who currently occupy 2nd. They will certainly need to up their game considerably for those remaining fixtures though so getting a team out will be vital in each one.