Freshers' Fun Run 2006
By Leika Gooneratne
Nothing like a fun-filled race to finish off freshers' week. Over 200 keen runners -half of whom were freshers- turned out at Wilberforce track at 3pm on the 8th October to compete in the annual Freshers Fun Run. This year, the motivational (albeit slightly cheesy) strains of Chariots of Fire and other inspirational music playing from League organiser James Gill's car, and three girls doing the race four-leggedly, raised the fun levels to a new high. Flour was sprinkled en route to form 'RAGE', a word typical of the Hare & Hounds fervour.
The girls started first, at the blast of Club Captain Claire Day's gun, onto a 3.2km flat tarmac course, looping along Madingley Road and the Cavendish site. Charlotte Forbes (Girton) sped round to win the race in a time of 11:49, making a strong start to defending her title of last year as the ladies' champion of the Chris Brasher College League, closely followed by Laura Spence (Wolfson) and Harriet Owles (Selwyn). The freshers made an impressive impact, Lauren Barklie (Magdalene), Polly Keen (New Hall) and Willow Kemp (Johns) grabbing 4th, 6th and 9th places respectively. Ladies vice-captain Hannah Brice did well clinching 5th place, while President Joan Lasenby easily nabbed 7th place despite being .under the weather,. 20 plus years on since university having done little to cramp her talent.
The men's race was a competitive one, with Mens Captain Will George (Jesus), defending champion, topping the bunch with a timing of 15:49, beating his own time of 15:53 last year on a course that was 0.3km shorter than this year's altered course of 5.3km! Richard Ward (Pembroke) and Ben Hope (John's) scooped up second and third places, the latter and ex-Harey Captain having made a startling recovery from long-term injury breezing through as though he had never left the running scene. The first three freshers were James Kelly (Jesus), John Redshaw (Tit Hall) and Sam Dobin (Trinity) attaining 5th, 11th and 17th places respectively.
This puts Jesus (men) and Selwyn (women) in top positions so far in the college league.
Hon. Secretary Lee Harper(Clare)'s and Junior Treasurer Laura Dixon (Emmanuel)'s time in the club and hard training were clearly shown with them being amongst the most improved. Mark Coley, Lucy Greaves, Ian Malone and Andrew Duncan all showed marked improvement. By Mark Coley's complicated mathematics, it was worked out that the biggest improvement was seen by Heather Harrison (Wolfson).
Many thanks to the following who made the event such a success: Claire Day for efficient captaining and warning runners not to run over pedestrians, Dr. Thorne for his reliable time-keeping skills, Mark Coley for working tirelessly on results, Aidan Brown for registration, Claire Nance for the provision of food, and the marshals including last year's Captain Simon Rutherford, Owain Bristow, Alice Tozer, James Burrows, Hannah Winterhalder and Aidan Reilly. Finally a huge thank you to James Gill and Ali Connell, College League organisers without whose efforts, the event would not have run as smoothly as it did.