Run for the hills! Donald Trump doesn’t know where they are!

A slightly quieter week in terms of racing, but not necessarily training and general running. By the looks of things on Strava there are a great many of the club just out and about enjoying the sun, the rain and the slightly warmer temperatures than we normally see in November. Just a thought, but if anyone wants to do Trigger this year, now would be a really good time to get out and recce it before the weather turns proper grim…. which is when people normally try and recce it. This week, though, I believe we had some people out running and racing… lets start with the most normal one of the lot.

Man vs Barge –

You’ve heard of man vs train, well, this is the hardcore version. Maybe. Dan Stinton, along with a load of other people ran from Marsden to Diggle (both places that, a few years ago, I would have sworn are made up names) whilst a barge trundled it’s way through the Standedge tunnel. Dan ended up in a rather well deserved 9th place (and indeed 1st and only GDH). I have to report that apparently, on finishing the race, a beer was then collected at the side of the canal, swiftly followed by the runners being ushered to a nearby pub for chip butties. Now THAT’s what I call a race. Low entry fee, minimum fuss, maximum amounts of post race carbs.

Eccles Pike

This innocent looking, but in fact pretty brutal little mid-weeker was run this wednesday

just gone, and there was a fair turnout from the club. From the off, it is a flat out sprint followed by a bit of a bottleneck, and then an out and back (with a minor detour for the downhill section) along a steadily gruelling path. Nowhere to hide on this one, and as far as I understand everyone “enjoyed” themselves thoroughly. There were a number of age cat prizes on the night, and the GDH ladies won the team prize- Good on yer!

 

24 Paul Skuse 28:12
52 Lizzie Leason 31:26
69 Nick Ham 33:10
78 Ezme Brack 34:05
79 Pete Wallroth 34:10
86 Lawrence Fennelly 34:37
89 Heather Jansevska 34:50
98 Beccy Smith 35:56
99 Cheryl Stitt 35:57
109 Jo Brack 38:13

Tour Of Bradwell

Ah – the Tour of Bradwell – the Long and the Half. Another race in which maximum amount of miles can be extracted from the minimum of entry fee. Various stories came out of this, with Nick Ham on the Long tour got his second fastest time ever, despite a bog avoidance diversion and the continued closure/detour of part of the route. He even managed to have time to wander back for an icecream at the end.
Tim ran against his better judgement (and because I wasn’t available to go climbing with him). He set off at a marvellous pace, but was overtaken by Alice at Cavedale, and was dropped well and truely off Losehill. (as in, Alice moved on at a faster pace, she didn’t push him off). All would have been well except for the fact she took a minor detour (of about 1.5 miles) a mere 300m from the end, (I suspect this may have something to do with icecream, again), and Tim sneaked in for the first GDH home, with Alice wandering around Bradwell scoffing icecream before finishing a mere 3 mins behind him. (Tim – just thought – I think I might still have your Long Tour map somewhere…..)

Behind HER was the head to head of Steve Pepper and Dez Mitchell. It seems that Steve had to keep stopping to get stuff out of his rucksack, and so everytime he made some time up Dez caught up, overtook and put some time into Steve… until Steve finished faffing, managed to pass Dez, til he needed something from his rucksack…. and so on and on. Steve then decided to go without water, food, commonsense and oxygen for the last 5 miles of the race, and although this paid off to begin with, he was quickly losing time by the final stages… and despite being tempted by the Fish and Chip shop, the icecream parlour and the tea room, he managed to stumble back to the finish, with Dez in hot pursuit finishing barely 30 seconds after him.
Emma Rettig ran her own race. I understand that pubs on the route were ringed in red on her map, as were other refreshment points, the jacuzzi at Lose Hill Manor, cake stops and coffee houses. Whether or not she stopped at any, or indeed all of them is not for me to guess. However, I did see her this morning and she looked in good shape, with a great tan, lovely fingernails and sparkling hair, and I *know* that the Half Tour doesn’t give out a blowdry at the end of the race, so draw your own conclusions…

 

Long Tour

38 Nick Ham 7:26:45

Half Tour

44 Tim Culshaw 2:46:07
54 Alice Willson 2:49:50
59 Steve Pepper 2:54:10
60 Dez Mitchell 2:54:41
81 Emma Rettig 3:08:35

Preston 10mile race

David Chrystie Lowe was out and about in Preston this weekend for the remarkable Preston 10 miler. Remarkable for the fact it is indeed, in Preston, and is, in fact 10 miles long. He had a lovely time looking at all the delightful historical and geographical sites of Preston as he tilted past at a rate of knots (yes, we no longer do mph, or kmph, we’re working in knots now), and finished in 1:11:24 at an average speed of 4 bowlines, a sheetbend and 2 reef knots per hour.

Parkrun corner

Ezme Brack and Liam Amos continued their speed streaks at Glossop parkrun this week, finishing within 30 seconds of each other and both getting PBs to boot. Excellent running in slightly damp conditions. Consolidated report is over here

Other stuff going on this week coming

Most importantly – next Saturday is John H’s Birthday bash, which I waxed lyrical about last week. Come. There is much jollity to be had.

Skuses nav challenge is still on the hill, but CP3 is kind of not there any more (from what I could see today, so ask him what was on the bit of paper…. but DON’T go and cheat).

Mark Harrison has laid down a bit of a gauntlet in terms of getting from the Turning Circle to Wainstones and back in a ridiculously short amount of time…. even if you’re not going to go it in an hour, still give it a go and see how fast you can do it. Then you can go and try it in the winter and see just how much the bog changes the speed!

I’m about to make decisions on the FRA relay teams, thanks to the people who have given their names for consideration – I’ll be contacting people in the next week and trying to finalise stuff.

Oh – and I’m going to need a volunteer to write nonsense for weekly reports for a couple of weeks…. anyone up to the task? You basically need to be quite imaginative, able to lie through your teeth, be able to completely mess up results and spellings of peoples names, and generally insult as many people as you can in one short missive. Drop me a line.