Tuff Fitty’s ‘Respect’ Track Power Hour

The return of our club’s track power hour. As the 18th September was national Respect Day, what better than to have teams of three in relay format for exactly sixty minutes around Worthing Leisure centre track. The format has provided fast racing in the past and this time was no exception with Captain Verity Lacey collating the teams ensuring each had an equal level of ability. Alongside Verity was men’s Captain Mark Sole who was ‘motivator extraordinaire’ encouraging the runners to push on whilst keeping an eye on the stopwatch. By the end of the 60 minutes 217.2 laps had been completed, or 54 miles, enough to run to London! – Thanks Captains. It was a much appreciated gesture by Mark to have some ‘liquid refreshments’ on hand post race and we pass the ‘baton’ to Verity who takes up the story:-

‘Here we are again for another evening of fun running on the track for the Tuff Fitty Power Hour. For those that don’t know about the event, carefully put together teams of three take it in turns running one lap of the track (400m). The only rule is that the order of the team cannot be changed once started’.

‘We managed to gather together enough victims to form 6 teams’.

Mark (Sole) rounded up the troops and sent them off on a few laps to warm up and to make sure they knew the route and weren’t going to get lost. Warm up done, the teams were called up one by one, asked for their team name and the all important team photo.

As 7pm grew closer the lap counters were allocated a team and set up with clipboards, counting sheets and pens and took up position on the starting steps ready to count the runners home.

I think both the runners and lap counters felt the hour drift by very slowly but for very different reasons. The runners wondering when the pain would end and the lap counters when they could warm up.

Mark graciously counted down each 15 minute block up to the final minute. At which point everyone jump into action watching eagerly to see where each runner would finish on the track.

Teams are set to try and make it as even as possible throughout so that it really does come down to the final few laps. There was just 20m between first and second place and 300m between second and third place; a really tight race!

Overall the evening went really well, big thanks to all the runners that signed up, the lap counters and support crew. This is always such a fun event to be part of so watch out for the next one and make sure you get signed up to run, assist or coming along for support.

Verity

The results: –

1 Track Stars – 37 laps plus 220m…………. 2 Gasping for a Spare – 37 laps plus 200m
Stuart Harvey, Kate Cooper & Sophie Garbo——————— Jacob Bowen Jones, Susan Douglas & Adrian Oliver

3 Last Minute Winners – 36 laps plus 300m……….. 4 Rose Between 2 Thorns – 36 laps plus 100m

Dan Lawrence, Clare Worgan & Leah Simms ……………………………. Mark Walford, Sue Pinky & Gareth Coombes

5 Self-Addressed Envelope – 35 laps plus 300m………… 6 ACD – 33 laps plus 300m

Alex Webb, Elaine Rousseau & Simon Grundy ………………………………Dom Amey, Alistair Evans & Callum Kalbfell

Thanks to our lap counters, Andy Vincent, Clive Harvey, Hazel Tuppen, Ness Green, Verity lacey & Vicki Hedger. Click on the photo below for the gallery:-