Even the big freeze couldn’t prevent 716 hardy runners taking to the start for the Romsey 5. And what better way to kick-start the racing year with a ferociously fast five miler to feast on.

In amongst those runners heading over to the Broadlands Estate for one of the flattest five mile races in the land were Trev Elkins and Chris O’Brien. Former Bournemouth AC man Harry Smith was there as well and with the form he’s in it was guaranteed that he would be up there challenging for the race win.

Coming very close to victory at the Stubbington 10k a couple of weeks earlier as well as the Victory 5 in December and the Hayling 10 in November, Harry was certainly due some glory.

Trev and Chris had both suffered at the hands of covid, with Chris still not back to how he was before, 18 months on from when he first caught the virus. Trev contracted it quite recently and suffered some breathing and aerobic issues afterwards which had at least some impact on his last few races.

Trev had done the Romsey 5 at least four times before so he was very familiar with its nuances. His best time to date was 29:52 which he did in 2021. At the Victory 5 though he ran 29:34 so that was effectively his target to beat.

Also having done the race a few times before, Chris also knew what he was up against. He ran 32:57 in the 2021 one but his best time was in 2014 when he got round in 32:30.

On the day of the race, temperatures had plummeted to an all time low and Trev felt he was the coldest he’d ever been when doing a race. That’s saying sometime because there was that one year when he did a 20 mile race in the New Forest in the snow.

He literally couldn’t feel his fingers or his toes and had to put his hands in some hot water just before the race started to thaw them out. In spite of that though, he had a really good run, keeping before six minute miling for all his splits. This time he paced it quite well and didn’t set off too quickly so he still had energy left for the second half of the race.

The slowest section of the race for Trev was the 6th and 7th kilometers where he hit the long out and back. It was quite exposed there so he really felt the chill. There was also a hairpin turn as well which saps the energy right out of you.

Completing the course in 29:34, Trev had just about nailed down a five mile PB, by two seconds so he was chuffed with that. That put him in 16th place overall. He was 5th in the 40-49 category and his average pace for the run was 5:52.

He could potentially have gone even quicker but Trev has been taking beetroot tablets recently and they had been giving him side cramps, which is apparently one of the side effects. He wanted to avoid that so had to slow himself down every time before hitting the his anaerobic threshold.

Also putting in a strong performance, Chris felt that best he had during a race for about a year and a half. He still needs to be careful not to work at a high intensity for any length of time so ran it comfortably hard all the way up to the last 250m when he left fly. That really hurt his chest.

Registering a time of 32:14, he’d beaten his previous best Romsey 5 time and finished in 42nd place. That put him 6th in 50-59 category and gave him an average pace of 6:24. It was still some way off his PB of 30:53 but it was certainly another step in the right direction for Chris and that was pleasing.

Taking the race win in emphatic style, Harry got that top spot on the podium that he’d been craving. Hi time was a very impressive 25:25 which was over a minute quicker than anyone else in the field. His splits were all 5:10 or quicker sop it was another top notch performance from Harry.

Matt Risden of Southampton finished runner up in 27:03 before Ross Wilkes of Isle of Wight Road Runners swooped in to take third place in 27:10. There were seven runners who got in in under 28 minutes.

A familiar face in Dorset Doddlers star Mollie Rasch was first female, coming in just ahead of Trev in 29:17. That put her in 14th place overall. Amanda Hull was next female, getting round in 31:04 which put her in 28th place overall.

Hometown hero Hannah Shutt of Romsey Road Runners claimed the third place female spot in 32:05.

Trev will continue building for the Eastleigh 10k which is in March and will be his main target race for the Spring.