Scarsbrook & Steel Steamroller Swithland

In 2024, following his success at the Paris Olympics, Alex Yee was rightly recognised for his successes and nominated for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award. On the evening, in the pre-filmed segments interviewing the athletes and following them in some of their normal everyday training activities, Alex was filmed running a country road, round a corner onto a reservoir breakwater. "That's the Swithland 6 course!" every LRRL runner shouted at their TV that evening, surely? One of the most scenic routes of our race series, our now slightly elongated uphill start sees us sprint past the Mountsorrel Heritage Centre at the top of Halstead Road (well worth a visit, if you've never been) before turning left onto the wonderful quad banging downhill to Swithland reservoir. As well as taking a circuit of the top end of the reservoir, we pass the preserved Grand Central Railway twice (the author has been running this race since 2015 and has still never managed to time either railway bridges with the view of a steam train rolling past) and run a mile through the beautifully stony Swithland village, complete this year with an unexpected equine hazard. Thank you to all runners who took the sensible decision to give the horse and rider courtesy and a wide berth, no-one wants to be dealing with a panic stricken horse hurtling toward 700 runners. Thank you also to Matt Scarsbrook and Gemma Steel whose victories give us the excellent (and easy) opportunity for a fully alliterative headline. In what has become a recurring theme in recent races, Scarsbrook took victory over Michael Cheverton, finishing in 31:32 compared to Cheverton's 33:04. Groundhog Day was released 33 years ago, by the way. In third place, we had Philip Cannon from Poplar RC, taking the rostrum for the first time this season and he finished in 33:13, just pipping West End Runners' Ben Darlow to the post who finished in 33:16. Despite nursing a current achilles issue, Gemma Steel was strong enough (does that count as a pun?) to take first place in 36:34, finishing just shy of 30 seconds ahead of Charnwood AC clubmate Emily Smith who placed second in 37:03. A further twelve seconds back was Amy Pizzorno, continuing her strong season in 37:15. Our draft results for the race are now available here and will be finalised by Friday 12 June, along with the updated tables before we have a short break to the Steve Morris 5 at the end of the month, after what has been a hectic four races in four weeks. Thank you to Birstall RC, Race Director Dave Snutch and his team today for delivering another successful and excellent race. Queries as always to lrrlresults@gmail.com please and we will get through them as promptly as possible. Please bear in mind we do work for a living (sadly) and have families to be with (joyfully) so will get to them as quick as possible, even if it isn't immediate. Have a great week in the meantime!