Running in Lockdown

28th September 2020 | Clubs and Societies, Sport

It seems a long time since we hosted what turned out to be the last Leicestershire Road Running League Event, the Kibworth 6, early in March!

Shortly afterwards activities were put on hold and running became a solo activity during Lockdown.

Members kept in touch through our various social media groups, and of course a Zoom meeting or two (without a quiz and arguments) 

We soon came up with ideas to introduce a competitive element to our runs with numerous club events encouraging members to keep training.

Club Events

We started with a 30 Minute Challenge attracting 40 competitors led by Team Captains, Bernie Owen and Jim Hawley.

Teams were drawn based on varying pace abilities and resulted in a closely fought contest over the VE Bank Holiday weekend.

Honours went to Team Jim with a total of 71.5 miles covered by 20 runners, edging out Team Bernie’s 70.8 miles.

Next up a 45 Minute Challenge, with 30 plus runners, again competing in two teams, and another victory for Jim’s Team, with barely a mile covering them.

Another event saw runners chose from a distance of 4, 7 or 10 miles, with three teams, Emma Boyd taking on a non-running Captain’s role as she herself recovered from coronavirus.

This event also attracted over 30 runners covering 222 miles between them, with a third victory for Team Jim, covering their 74 miles in just over 11 hours.

Again there were only a few minutes separating the teams in total, which made for an exciting Sunday evening as the results came in.

Jim’s winning streak ended with the latest event, a ‘Ross Barkley’ 5k Challenge.

Rather than a straight 5k run, participants could take up to 2 hours to complete the distance, pausing their watch in between running efforts, a style made famous by the aforementioned footballer.

Victory went to Team Emma on this occasion but Jim could take pride as well as consolation in recording the fastest 5k time of 15:54 

See Also:

Leicestershire Lockdown League

With official events cancelled, the League came up with a series of virtual League Races, starting with a 10k event, which also raised over £5,000 for the Rainbows Children’s Hospice.

Twenty-three club members took part in the variety of races, ranging from a rapid mile through 5k, and a final 10k, so our club events came in handy for keeping sharp.

As a club we did well to come through the first set of 5 races and finish fourth out of seven in a tough group.

This put us in Group B for the final where we again faced bigger clubs, but managed to avoid finishing bottom of the final table!

Performances worthy of mention include Bernie Owen who finished first of 20 in her age category, Lorna Muskett 8th of 86 in hers and Kirit Patel who finished 3rd of 26 in his age category.

Next Month

Fleckney & Kibworth Run The World plus Sam’s Pennine Way Challenge.

Alan Gibson