Sunday the 16th April, saw the annual gathering of Island runners to pay tribute to Roger Walker-Reed. Roger’s favourite run was a hilly affair, starting down on the promenade in Ventnor, scaling the downs before returning back down to the seafront to finish. The run usually comes in at just over 7 miles, but clocks up a challenging 800 feet or so of elevation.
An overcast cool day meant for perfect conditions for running, and resulted in some great performances from the 49 runners that took to the course.
The speediest runners on the course were Louis Forster (50:54) and Sarah Ward for the girls, both running fantastically well. Louis had even run to Ventnor as a little pre race warm up. Jack Eldridge and Tom Forster were 2nd and 3rd to cross the line.
Speed is not everything though, as the Rog Run is a nominated event, so the big prizes go to those that can predict and judge their pace the best.
Rich Bezer was that star on the nomination front, predicting his time exactly correctly, zero seconds out! 2nd was Louis Forster and 3rd was Neil Cooper.
Ellie Smyth won the women’s nominated, 34 secs out. 2nd was Elaine Harris and 3rd was Julie Rasmussen.
The winning team at the event were “F**k me, really”. The winning crew of Lisa Upstell, Elaine Harris and Kev Winchcombe were a grand total of 5:46 out between then. Runners up were “Don’t ask me” and 3rd place went to “The Days”.
