Heaton Memorial 10K race report

Although Neil Banks has been at the club a while now, it’s been a long wait until his race debut.

Finally in Black and White: Heaton Memorial 10K, Sunday, 9th Nov 2014

After what seems like months of waiting, finally on Sunday came my first chance to wear the Black and White vest of TBH.

The Heaton Memorial was the target race; and having put in some hard sessions with group 4 in the build up, I felt set for the day, having last run a 10k in the same race last year.

So along came Sunday, and I imagine like most other’s running that day the first thing I did was check the weather. Looks nice and calm, which is surprising, because as we all know, the Town moor can be quiet windy at times.

So with bag packed off I set to Newcastle, I arrived quite early to collect my number which was then carefully attached to my Tyne Bridge vest, and then, for the first time, I put on the vest.

Moving on to the Town moor / Exhibition Park, people starting to gather staring to notice a sea of Black and White vests heading towards the start, everyone doing their warm-up’s.

Being approached by a lot of fellow TBH’ers and offered support and congratulations on my debut run.

Meeting up with some fellow group 4 runners being led by Michael Nemeth – who has agreed to act as a pacer for us wanting to achieve a sub 50 10k – a group of about 5 set off to do our drills and on to the start line.

Minutes silence observed and off we go, a nice little group at a steady pace. At times it seems like a tempo surge session, athletes trying to find space to run into.

1st mile done and I already have noticed the fantastic support around the course, great shouts of encouragement for all us Tyne Bridge runners.

Being well paced throughout, the group continue like a pace train, heading to our destination “the finish line”, all trying to make our final push to get our sub 50’s.

Group 4 packing (Neil No.354)

Race complete all happy with our times thanks again to Michael for leading us through. Meeting other TBH’s who have completed the race, sharing details of their race and time achieved, lots of PB’s.

What a great day for Tyne Bridge picking up more top prizes. Fantastic support all round the course.

So very happy to finally be a Tyne Bridge Harrier.

Neil

Race results can be found here.