Stowmarket Scenic 7 - 2006

11.02am 7 miles in 52.37 minutes

Week to date mileage 20 miles

Month to date mileage 50

Average weekly rate 30.2

Average monthly rate 131

Year to date 1365

Lifetime 9385

I entered on the day the Stowmarket Scenic Seven. Remembering from last year the potential parking problems at the Sports centre I left early and arrived at 9.45am. Even then the car park was pretty full but I was able to park up and head into the sports centre to register.

The weather was near perfect cool but sunny.

Course: Start is from the Stowmarket Leisure Centre. This is a circular run which takes you through the villages of Onehouse, Harleston and Shelland. The course is as described and there is some beautiful scenery and some wonderful Suffolk pink farmhouses to admire.

There are two fair sized hills that you encounter. The first is just after the 4 mile sign and the hill is a fairly long drag of somewhere around a half mile long. The second hill is somewhat shorter at around 6 miles. There are also some good down hill sections as well though.

Stowmarket is mid way between Bury St Edmund's and Ipswich and the Leisure Centre is easy to find. The total no of finishers was 361 which shows this race goes from strength to strength as this is an increase on last years 328.

As this was remembrance Sunday before the start we had a 2 minute silence for all those who have died in wars. This was well observed before the starters gun gave a feeble phwaaarrppp and we were off.

The starter has warned us that the 1st and 7th mile positions might be slightly wrong as the start had been slightly altered. Nevertheless I took my mile splits which were as follows Mile 1 7.12 slightly downhill , Mile 2 7.32, Mile 3 7.31, Mile 4 7.27, Mile 5 8min uphill, Mile 6 7.21 and last mile in 7.30.

I managed to run in a group of about 4 runners for 2-3 miles until this group split at the bottom of the hill climb on Mile 5.

There were 2 drinks stations on this course, not many spectators and a few cars as the course is open to traffic. I would highly recommend this course to anyone who fancies a well organised event in the heart of Suffolk.

My biggest surprise came at the end of the race when I realised my time was identical to last years. Both my official time of 52.41 and my own time taken when I crossed the starting line of 52.37 were identical. At least a year older I am no slower but it would have been nice to come in at least a second quicker!

Instead of medals every runner was given a Scenic 7 hand towel unusual but more useful. Thanks Stowmarket Striders for putting on a marvelous event.

I am adding all pictures I took at this event on my flickr site, look for the link on the left hand side of the page.