Yeah, I mentioned the comp record
here!
The Stockton course is a fast course: two laps of a circuit so just four 25 mile segments, plus a mile or so of side road at each end. The wind was light for most of it, and helpfully shifted south towards the end when most people (there were only 39 starters) were heading north for the second and last time. The A1 also got closed for a bit so some people reported extra northbound traffic to give some extra slipstream - I can't say I noticed it but then I've got a high traffic tolerance.
Richard came past me at one point and I stared at his disappearing number while I did the maths: he'd caught me for this many minutes, at this point in the event, which meant that if he kept that pace he'd do it in ... ooh err, he was touch and go for comp record. As it turned out, he got even faster from then on. As someone said in another place: if this is your first 100, what crazy state of mind makes you pace it at 30 mph?!
The Burton 100 is traditionally the fastest event; Richard said he was only doing the Teesside to get a qualifying time for the Burton. I think he said he's not going to bother now: it'll take an extremely good day on the Etwall course to give better times than were done today. I hate to think what time you'll need to do to get into the national 100 when it runs on Teesside next year, now that everyone knows about it.