By Mitch | June 3, 2014
Andy McIntosh and I made the trip to Worcester to run in the ‘Peak Performance 10K’. Now, you know there are some races that have everything and you can’t wait to recommend them to your fellow runners, well this one had NOTHING.
There was no allocated parking, no toilets, no baggage area, no mile markers, no (visible) first aid, no marshalls (no tell a lie, there was one, or were ther two), no chip timing, no t-shirt, no drinks en route, and so it goes on. The numbers had to be collected on the day and the photo shows the queue with TWO minutes to go before the start.
The numbers themselves were peel-back and stick on and lasted about a mile before perspiration allowed them to gently slide off. The ‘Start/Finish’ sign looked like it had been made by a five-year old on ‘Blue Peter’ – about 6 foot high with ‘Start’ hand-written on one side and ‘Finish’ on the other. As we stood alongside it, the last words from the organiser before the race itself were “has everyone got a number?”.
Going back to the marshalls, there were two, one at the start and one after a mile. We were convinced they were one and the same, and we were proved right as both twins were there at the finish, desperately trying to write down the names of the numberless runners as they crossed the line. We had our cup of Morrissons value water and meandered back, smiling at the cheek of it all and the fact that the Chuckle Brothers had made circa £3500 on the day for doing next to nothing.
Ironically the run itself was really rather pleasant, out in the morning sun, along the banks of the river, round the Worcestershire Cricket Ground and back past the cathedral. Nice and flat too, so PB potential, and I would definitely do it again, if only for the comedy value….. disappointingly NOT!
This afternoon (1st June), one of the twins has emailed every runner asking them to let him know what time they did the race in because of the ‘missing numbers’ fiasco and there’s also an apology from him because the goody bags were not delivered to the finish – priceless! (well, £15 actually!). So tempted to go back with a 10K PB time…..
Oh and finally, not only was the water at the finish cheap Morrisons value, economy H2O, half of it was also the sparkling version – you couldn’t make it up!
‘Official’ Results:
http://www.peakperformanceevents.co.nf/results-01.06.14.html
More feedback on the ‘organisation’: http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/
| Name | Pos | Time |
| Andy McIntosh | 21 | 00:43:03 |
| Mitch Timms | 53 | 00:46:19 |