The “my goodness, what a glorious weekend -the beginning of Easter” Weekend report

The delightful weather has come out this weekend, well, today, at least. We’ve had a

fairly busy outing for the club over the last couple of days, both on the hills and on the road with varying degrees of success, but equal degrees of enjoyment!

Chicken Run

First up was the short, but relatively hard Chicken Run race over in Hayfield. Leading in the harriers, both in terms of getting some people out there and also in terms of running in the race was Matt Crompton – thanks for organising the lifts. I’m not actually sure of his position, mainly as the results aren’t out yet. Zoe Barton showed an excellent return to form, shooting through the ranks and being 1st WV40 home. Lizzie Leason, back home from Uni for the Easter holidays decided to stretch her legs out in Hayfield – and despite having to stop to remedy a loose shoe – came in 4th lady overall, a superb result. Not only that, but along with Zoe and Jo Brack Glossopdale won the Ladies Team Prize – marvellous! John Hewitt was also out and about, getting his racing mojo back after Edale Skyline last week and had an enjoyable run around, but mostly enjoyed the coffee and cake at the end.

4 Inns

Throughout Saturday, the 4 Inns was also being run and Glossopdale had 4 runners across 3 separate teams wandering their way between Marsden and Buxton. Andy Oliver trundled his way across the bogs with his traditional buddies from down south taking some new and interesting and exciting lines which may, or may not have been more efficient than the normal ones.

Paul Skuse and Ben Naylor teamed up with 2 lovely ladies (Miranda and Sue) for their romp (not that kind) across the delights of the Peak District. According to Paul, they basically ate more calories than they burnt (quite an achievement considering its 65km long) and had a lovely day out to boot. In all, they were the only team who happened to finish in the 10 hour bracket, finishing in 10:24 – 9th overall and 3rd in their category. Excellent running by all. (or eating, and then running, in Paul’s case).

Now, I also know that Esme Brack was out and about doing the Yoof version of the 4 Inns, but I have no information on how that went, other than she really enjoyed the day out. I believe the numbers were somewhere around the 10 hour mark as well, but as I don’t know which team she was on, and I can’t search by names, I haven’t got a clue. Excellent work though- the 4 Inns is not a race to be sniffed at!

Lads Leap

Sunday saw the return of Lads Leap Fell race, another in the short and hard category – previously and English Champs race. As far as I know, there was only 1 harrier out – Dan Oldham, getting his speed on for the crowd (and by that, I mean the watching Steve Pepper), but I have no idea how well he got on. I’m fairly sure it was substantially muddy, and that it was pretty challenging to run fast over the terrain. Well done Dan. Mr (dr) Pepper was also on hand to help an injured runner who eventually got carted off to hospital. Well done that man.

Manchester Marathon

On Sunday there was also a small, little known race in Manchester that happened to run over a distance of 26.2 miles. (That’s 7.5 leagues for the uninitiated). Much anticipation had built for this one as a certain Mr Crossman has been training like a demon for the last few months for a sub-3 attempt. So serious, in fact, that rumour has it that he even abstained from alcohol for a period of more than 3 weeks. Along with Steve, a number of harriers also lined up for the trial (not trail…. trial)…. and were blessed with a cool, but fine morning.

Steve leapt at the chance, but managed to contain his enthusiasm by not going off too fast. I was, unfortunately, working, so was not able to be kept on tenterhooks for the entire time as the tracker tracked him round. After some serious digging in and slapping of the tarmac, Steve came over the line in 2:57:09 (that’s the time I have, anyway) – so a serious sub3, and 9th in V50 Cat. Excellent work for a now apparently retired marathoner!

Next across the line was Tim Culshaw, keeping his long distance credential alive, but I’m pretty sure just ran around on the coat tails of Rich White, and then shot off in the last 2 km… Rich managed to hold on to his dignity and drew himself to the end in 3:16. Ian “ironman” Oates started out at a sedate pace, and steadily pushed his way onward toward the end, knocking a serious few minutes of his previous PB with a 3:37. Andy Burnett proved that spending too much time on your turbo can lead you to believe you are training, when actually you’re just playing an overly complex computer game – but was still able to trot into the finish in 4:11. Jayne Moreton was not all that far behind, and had a superb finish with 4:25, Malc – I believe, had a superb run, keeping good form throughout, staying on target to come in at 4:46, being chased all the way by Marie Williamson in 4:51.

Excellent running from all- I hope you had a fantastic day out in the city, no matter how well you did. The full results looked a bit like this:-

Park run

Yoof

This week

Just so you know, this week is the first Thursday run of the month – and therefore- pub run evening. May I suggest that we pootle along to the newly re-opened Prince of Wales (just around the corner from the Leisure centre) for a swift recovery drink after the run? I’ll be leading out an easy (introductory) fell run – last week we convened at the LC, drove to Snake summit and then did a lovely little 5k circuit, back for about 8:15. I’ll try and do the same kind of trick this week. If anyone else wants to lead a road run, you are most welcome. I suspect Jules will be there to offer a slightly more challenging version of the hills run, but if we aim to be back and in the pub for about 8:30, it’d be great to catch up with those who we haven’t seen in a while.

And if you don’t want to run, but do want to socialise, be in the Prince by 8:30, and see if you can save us some seats.