The final week and a bit of the Don Thompson Spring challenge came to a conclusion on Wednesday 6 May coinciding with the anniversary of Sir Roger Bannister’s sub-four minute mile. While we didn’t quite have anyone duck under that magic number (or even anywhere close if we are being honest) there were some fantastic improvements over the six weeks. The series was a personal challenge, with a hint of competitiveness, so there are no prizes for the fastest time* or highest age grade**. The spreadsheets are there on the website if you want to slice and dice the results.
Pulling out something special for the last week, Torben Jessen’s road to recovery (5:29, 81.97) trundled on, a 17 second series PB – I think we can expect a lot from this young man in the future. Brian Davis went from trying to get under 8 minutes to 7:34 (66.24) on a diet of brisk walking and limited racing. Chris Wolgar got down to 6:35 (73.27) and held it for a few weeks.
Tim Warren (5:45) joined the 70%ers in a photo finish with Zoe Neale, who had a flier in 6:42 (70.77). Ian McGilloway matched his own fastest time of 4:54 again without the significant tailwind but got older in the process so scored his highest age grade of 83.87%. Jonathan Arana-Morton went east and west in the same run with his fastest being 5:56 (68.72).
Jennifer Quinn , 7:39 (57.36) saved her best for last, from 8.04 (54.4) in week 2, as did Angela Warren, who made fantastic progress going from 9:32 (46.5) in week 1 to 8:25 (51.7) in week 6.
Five members also used their time to compete in the national BMC Bannister Virtual Mile TT: Ian McGilloway, Torben Jessen, Tim Warren, Darren Crew, Gary Brazier and Anglea Warren. In a bunched finish McGilloway came in 8th M45, two secs off a top five finish. Jessen narrowly missed the M55 top 10 by the same margin. The full results for that are here: https://data.opentrack.run/x/2020/GBR/bmcmile/event/T1/1/1/
We don’t always have to keep running longer and longer. You might find that it’s the shorter distances that you do better and get more satisfaction from. It can also help for the longer distances. It can be very rewarding to find out just how hard and fast you can drive yourself for a mile.
“Keep going, keep going, keep going, until a little something inside you says, ‘keep going'”
Frank Horwill, BMC founder
The full results are available on the challenge page https://folkestonerunning.club/home/events/don-thompson-mile/don-thompson-spring-series/ ‘it’s not a race, it’s a personal challenge’. The times are either submitted or taken directly from Strava (the fastest segment time for FRC members in the last week) Not everyone listed is racing it and may be using the course as part of a longer run. Remember to follow the latest guidelines on social distancing.
*me
**also me, just sayin’