It's that time of year again when there are such a thing as perfect running conditions. Where the air is fresh, there's no rain forecast, the wind is whispering gently, and the temperature is just right so your body temperature is "just right" as you run at your best pace - forever.
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| lovely weather for running along a towpath |
Sunday morning was one of those days - once you got going past the initial very early chilly surprise - and of course the utter horror of the clocks going the wrong way - the thought over a morning cuppa was always going to be - "today is going to be a good day for a run". It was however chuffing cold to be sat there - not moving for 4 hours - working on the cameras... despite being in an Antarctic Explorer grade coat...
The free download race gallery for the Spring RaceDay is live here since Sunday afternoon: http://sspimg.com/RBK-Spring-Raceday-2022-Gallery - just search on your race number for an accurate and easy gallery service to find and download your pictures !
The results are here if you need to remember your race number - https://sportsystems.co.uk/ss/results search for Kingston to get to the three different pages for the different distances.
A quick survey of races at the weekend across the South East had several cancellations, and low numbers of runners. The closest competition to us in terms of race photography services - had 141 runners in total and just about 2900 images available, which is on the low side compared to our 22,800 images for 587 runners. Admittedly two lap courses do make it easier to take a variety of shots and locations.
Most of the South East race events didn't get over 500 participants in total across all their distances, with Run Whitstable in Kent pulling in the most runners with 730 in total. Overall as a general trend we are seeing only about 50% of people turning up for races they have entered. Without a good post-race survey by event organisers to find out from people why they didn't turn up - we won't ever really know - so this is just my guesswork - levels of Covid are at a record level - it's not as deadly on a percentage basis as it was two years ago, but nevertheless even a mild case will put you out of action. Covid "hesitancy" ie avoiding unnecessary meetups will also play a part. We're seeing parkrun's only at about half their pre-covid "normals" even in the most perfect weather for a saturday morning social. And of course - there's not the pressure to get the pre-london marathon race distances practice in - so we will see what September brings.
(EDIT: I just checked the Cardiff Half - had just over 11,700 runners as one of the annual supermassive half marathons - the photography search results are frankly - abysmal - in both quality, quantity and accuracy, compared to what we did for Cambridge, and the West Super-Mare Half had 1647 runners - but no photos yet and it's Tuesday pm). There were 7 half marathons around the south of England and Wales on Sunday - and notably 20,450 runners ran Cardiff in 2019 when it last took place - so the roughly 50% of people turning out still generally is holding true.)
So - have people discovered on lockdown a different pleasure from running ? Have you hit the trails and found a different pace to run at instead of road running ? Have the last two years changed the way you enjoy running and exercise ? or has simply the cost of fuel gone so high and the cost of living so insane - it just meant you are taking a decision to keep things simple as possible ? All answers on an email please (to info@sussexsportphotography.com - it would be genuinely fascinating to know (or should I set up a google form survey?).
Anyway - here's some fun photos from the Kingston Spring Raceday, and a list of events you should enter next at the bottom - because - well they're lovely events organised by lovely people, and that's always a nice environment to run in...
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| No Surrender |
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| What a lovely day for a run |
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| For the win - good running at a 5:30minute mile pace - pretty quick ! |
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| a very fast 6:20minute mile pace for 8 miles - brilliant ! |
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| Pace is an abstract concept if its fun |
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| flying always makes things faster |
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| good to see the Horsham team out |
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| Happiness is found with friends |
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| surprise ! |
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| everyone - just calm down ! |
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| yes - it's a lovely day ! |
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| smooth running along the palace |
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| the one handed casual friendly wave is always welcome |
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| sleeves up |
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| it's a great double thumbs up |
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| double victory for two laps |
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| 2 gels, one number and a phone strap - for a double thumbs up win ! |
So here's a list of recent galleries in case you missed them, as well of a list of future events you should seriously consider entering and indeed - turning up to ! I should also add - all of these events have free race photos - done "properly" by us, but you knew that anyway.
Apologies to all the people from Hastings Half last weekend who got in touch to ask if there was any proof of them completing the race - sorry - not by us, and we can't find any either, and we generally know where to look, so you'll just have to run in one of the races above instead...
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rare lesser-spotted wrapped up photographer - still cold, despite sitting with two hoods up over his woolly hat for four hours - you can see his feet have gone dead in this photo.
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So I hope you enjoyed the summer weather last week, and keep yourselves wrapped up nice and warm for autumn...
Until next time, which is err... two weeks time...
Anthony
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