At the Finish Line with… Rob Crocker

Tell us a bit about your running history

I didn’t really have a history in running throughout school and university. I have always played a lot of football, amongst other sports, but I would never have chosen to just go for a run and generally tried to avoid it if it wasn’t for the purpose of chasing the ball.

I signed up for my first 10k race in 2012. I don’t really remember why I decided to do that, didn’t do enough training for it and found it very hard! It clearly wasn’t all bad though and I have since done numerous 10k races, a few half marathons, Endure24 and over 200 Parkruns.

When and how did you start running for OS Runners?

I joined OS Runners in 2012 when my partner, Naomi, who works at OS signed me up. Although I do not work at OS, everyone is very welcoming and it is nice seeing lots of familiar faces at any running events I take part in.

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Mile of Miles 2022

August saw the return of our much loved ‘Mile of Miles’ event, which had not taken place since 2019 due to the pandemic. The concept is easy (or so you’d think – we have possibly miscounted in the past!) – 10 people in a team, each running 4 laps of a 400m track (one mile each), therefore each team running a total of 10 miles. The event was held at Mountbatten School in Romsey on the Grass track which was a new challenge.

This was different to previous years, where the event is normally held at Southampton Athletics track, but due to this currently being resurfaced, a temporary one-off change of venue was needed for this year.

End of the evening group photo!

The winner each year have the ‘pleasure’ of organising next years event, so we were under strict instructions from our Chair (Naomi) not to win 🙂

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Overton 5 mile

As usual, the Hampshire Road Race League (HRRL) starts with the Overton 5 mile race on the 1st Sunday in September.

The course is net downhill, with ~ 80m of elevation in 8km and a couple of sections of over 5% climbs, I was left wishing that, like my bike, I could change gear on the uphills.

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RAB Scafell Sky race by Helen Newman

Rarely do I win anything, but I recently won the Rab Scafell Sky Race. I should elaborate, I won entry to the race, not the race itself – now that would be impressive. Not expecting to win, I entered the competition at the National Running Show, for a race I would only dream of running. Sky races were something the likes of Kilian Jornet and Georgia Tinley do, right? Not little old me who enjoys slow and steady bimbles on the South Downs Way. Heck, I found myself automatically entered. I had to give it ago. 

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At the Finish Line with… Andrew McClune

Tell is a bit about your running history

I’ve dabbled in running for a very long time.

My earliest memory of running/racing was at primary school on sports day running a race which was one and a half laps of a grass track that seemed such a long way. I did an after-school class as well called Going for Gold where we got to try all the athletic events but my passion as a kid was football.

I joined my local running club, Retford Athletics Club (AC), as a junior to help with my fitness for football. I had to make a deal with the coach that I could train with them as long as when it came to the summer, I would race for them during the football off-season. The coach saw potential in me for middle distance track racing and I kept at it up to the age of 16.

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