As one of Sanjai Sharma‘s regular stepping stones towards the London Marathon, the Bramley 20 is a race he knows very well. In fact he’s done it the last nine times its been on. It got cancelled the last three years due to either covid or stormy weather but for 2023 it was very much back on the agenda.
It’s a good route for a marathon paced training exercise as it’s two laps so it can be good practice for getting the first half and the second half of a race done at the same speed. It’s not fully flat though and there are some inclines to negotiate so it’s not quite as straight forward as it may seem.
Sanjai was going in with his usual strategy of breaking it down into blocks of five and trying to run it progressively, upping the pace at each five mile interchange.
There is also the option of running a 10 mile race at the Bramley event as well which is just one loop. That attracted a couple more Bournemouth AC members, those being the Jackson brothers, Sam and Luke.
They had both competed for BAC at the Junction Broadstone Quarter Marathon which was the first race of the Dorset Road Race League and had both performed fairly well on the day.
Sam’s 10 mile PB of 1:00:26 was actually set at the Bramley 10 back in 2013 so he clearly knew how to get the best out of himself there. Luke’s best 10 mile time was 1:05:26 which he did in November at the Wimborne 10.
Bournemouth AC member Rich Brawn was there as well as his brother Dave was competing in the 20 mile race as well so he had come to cheer Dave on. Dave was doing it as part of his training for the Newport Marathon.
Since it was his first proper test of his fitness since he started his marathon training, Sanjai wanted to take it quite conservatively for his first five miles and then gradually build it up from there, in line with his usual race strategy, then finish strongly. The second five miles of the loop is tougher than the first and contains more elevation which makes a difference, particularly the second time round.
Sanjai and Dave were quite close together throughout the race and even ended up running together at one point. Sanjai then pushed on and Dave decided it would be best to stick at his intended pace rather than try to up it.
The end result for Sanjai was a time of 2:26:05 which he was happy with. It was his slowest time at the Bramley 20 but not by much. In 2015 he did just under 2:26. For most of his previous attempts he’d been under 2:15 though. Nevertheless, it was a good building block for Sanjai and helpful to know whereabouts he was in fitness terms off the back of the training he’s done so far.
That put Sanjai in 87th place overall out of 373 and he was 5th out of 39 in the M60 category. His average pace was 7:18 minutes per mile. Reaching the finish just over a minute later, Dave clocked a time of 2:27:09 which put him in 94th place overall.
Meanwhile, in the 10 mile race, the Jackson brothers were on fire. It was a first ever sub 60 for Sam as he romped round a fantastic time of 59:28. That was good enough to put him in 18th place out of 413 for the 10 distance and he was 6th out of 58 in the M40 category. His average pace for a run was 5:57.
His previous best 10 mile time was 1:00:55 which he did at the Wimborne 10 in 2021. This was a massive improvement on that, representing great progress for Sam. In some ways though, Luke’s performance was even more impressive.
He looked like he’d completely transformed from how he was the last time the Jackson brothers came to training which was a while back. Work commitments had forced a change of routine but they clearly hadn’t slackened off on the running.
Appearing much leaner and fitter than he was before, Luke had in fact lost a stone and a half. His running was visibly better as well and he managed to record a huge new PB of 1:02:53, putting his average pace at 6:17 minutes per mile.
He was more of a 1:05/1:06 sort of man before that so this was a vast improvement from Luke. He finished 35th overall and 10th in the M40 bracket.
There were some pretty quick times posted at the front of the field in the 10k, with Adam Stokes of Bristol & West picking up the victory in 53:45, giving him a six second margin of victory over Tom Harding of Basingstoke & Mid Hants who took 2nd.
Daniel Hawkins of Newbury AC came 3rd in 54:26, with Aaron Wilson of City of Salisbury taking 4th in 54:41. He was also 1st vet as well.
Chelsea Rose Baker was 1st female and came 12th overall, getting round in 58:13. Charlotte Ragan of Basignstoke was the only other woman to get in under the hour. She finished in 59:44 which put her in 20th place overall. Her teammate Rebecca Sleap completed the course in 1:00:17 which put her in 22nd place overall.
There was one aspect of the Bramley event that really seemed to take people by surprise though and that was the speed at which the race leader was travelling. But it wasn’t the leader in the 10 mile race, it was the man who was out front in the 20 mile race. He was going so quickly that he was way ahead of anyone doing the 10 mile race as well though.
That was Ronnie Richmond of Bideford. He was moving so fast that he could barely get round the corners and almost overshot it at times when negotiating a tight bend. He didn’t run out of steam though and was able to maintain his astonishing pace throughout the run, completing the course in 1:43:04.
If that was his marathon pace and he’s doing London, he is going to be in for a very very quick time. Probably one of the fastest there will be by a British athlete.
That meant that a talented Aldershot Farnham & District trio had to settle for 2nd, 3rd and 4th places on the day. They were running together for a lot of the race but separated in the end. Stephen Blake took 2nd in 1:52:36, with Ian Bailey taking 3rd in 1:53:05 and Richard Lovejoy taking 4th in 1:53:50.
It was an Aldershot Farnham & District lady who topped the charts for the women, with Lesley Locks showing them who’s boss and getting round in 2:07:30. She finished 21st overall and her nearest rival, Leanne James of Reading was quite a way behind, clocking a time of 2:20:03 which put her in 60th place in the overall leader-board.
Edwina McDowall of Headington was 3rd female and 1st in the F50 category with her time of 2:20:51. That put her in 64th place overall.
Sanjai’s next race after that was another one he regularly competes in when training for London and that was the Wokingham Half Marathon. He was hoping to start off steady in that one and then get stronger as the race progressed.