Affiliated to the South of England Athletics Association and The Kent County Athletic Association
	HARVEL HASH HOUSE HARRIERS
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ASHFORD 10K

SUNDAY 9TH FEBRUARY 2004

Words by Fozzie

What an array of talent ! and that was only DURACELL and POPEYE'S missus, OLIVE OIL! Besides them, we managed to turn out a scintillatingly good team to take on the best the wild west could throw at us (Lucky for us, I don't think the Kenyan's have ventured that far south yet, it's probably too cold - ED) As planned at 9am (thats a miracle itself -Ed) the team were assembled outside Harvel village hall, in all their glory. Well, most of them. WIZARD, being an overtime monster, was already at work and was planning his precision tie-up with the convoy en route. Anyway, POPEYE, plus family, IRON MAN, FOZZIE, BIDDY and PSYCHO. Now, there's a thing ! PSYCHO, our newly appointed Marketing guru, hadn't entered, but was prepared to run the gauntlet of the Ashford officials and run without a number. Naughty or what ??? 

Seating arrangements sorted, once Isla had directed FOZZIE to sort out the back seat of his new team bus, for her to sit in, and off they went. Constant phone calls between DURACELL and THE WIZ ensured that he meet up with the others on the M20.

Numbers collected and the team were into their preparations. POPEYE trying to memorise his splits, IRON MAN trying to convince himself he wasn't going to come last, DURACELL taken by what a nice place this was to have a run and FOZZIE trying to work out if he need a t-shirt under his running vest and maybe even his woolly hat.

Off to the start and who was there but our very own original IronMan, Richard Horton, looking lean and mean as ever. The team whiled away the minutes by debating the likely winner of the ladies' race, who was definately going to be number 516, a well fit looking woman (I reckon she won the H5 last year for the ladies - Ed). Warm ups over and they were off. POPEYE straight into his stride, looking for and Kenyan or two to act as pacemaker, but all he could find was John Creen, winner of last years' Harvel 5 and all round fast bastard. Ha ! He hadn't reckoned on POPEYE being in the field ! No time for water stops as the race went it's course before POPEYE came storming home in just over 41 minutes. He was followed home by FOZZIE, who had had a ding dong battle with the original Iron Man, before the bastard nipped past him right on the line, in 43 mins 30 secs, with BIDDY less than a minute behind.

 An excellent effort by PINBALL saw him leave the others in his wake, finishing in a swift 46 mins. He was followed home unofficially by PSYCHO, who would undoubtedly have won, if it wasn't for him having to keep stopping to avoid the race marshals, local Constabulary and Armed Forces, who were deployed especially to find him. DURACELL was next back, having chatted to everyone that passed her (so that was quite a few - Ed), finish in her best time of 55 minutes. Our very own IRONMAN also exceeded all expectations in another personal best of 64 minutes, taking a full two minutes off his previous best.

Medals collected, tea and burgers scoffed, it was back to the Ammy for a de-brief or 2.