The Glossopdale “do” weekend report

Well then. Thanks very much to all those that turned up to the Christmas do yesterday afternoon- and to the somewhat less glamourous morning run as well. We had a delightful time plugging our way up Cock hill and Glossop low in the rain, wind and mist, and we even had a festive leprechaun with us. A most satisfying morning out.

If you weren’t at the Scout hut, you did indeed miss a crush of beautifully attired runners attempting to out-do each other on an eating, drinking and socialising scale seldom seen. I wonder if we are outgrowing the scout hut as it really was tightly packed in there! Great to see so many people out and about, and apologies if I didn’t get around to say hello to you, hopefully we’ll get out running together soon.

Thanks should go out to Beccy Ashworth, Jude, Alison and Lynne for their sterling efforts with decoration and prepping the hut – and to everyone that was involved in the tidy up as well. I’m sure there are many more people to thank, but this would end up being nothing but a list of everyone on the club, so I shall stop here.

In other news, Darren Clarke has not signed up to any silly bets this year. Matt Crompton “won” the London Marathon place, being picked out of the hat by Bill Buckley. I hear he is already getting in some training by not eating the prize he picked up for Adam… I must apologise to Laurie Barlow for putting her on the champs table twice, and so therefore halving her points. I shall correct this on my spreadsheet forthwith and will stick it on the correct page of the website when I get time. (ie in the next couple of days).  There were a few ideas for club events bandied around last night – potential Mountain Marathon weekends around Bleaklow, catching buses to farflung places (well… edale) and running back via checkpoints (with cake), Street-O’s in Broadbottom and Hadfield, National XCs etc. So there are some great ideas out there, it would be great to know if anyone a) would be interested in doing them now they are sober and b) if anyone has any other ideas. Do let me know.

Prizes

So the Road/Fell/Overall/Age grade champs ended up looking like this…

Road
Ladies

1. Kirsty Sharp
2. Beccy Smith

Blokes

1. Jamie Helmer
2. Steve Crossman

Fell
Ladies

1. Zoe Barton
2. Cheryl Stitt

Blokes

1. Chris Webb
2. Tim Budd

Overall
Ladies

1. Zoe Barton
2. Heather Jansevska

Blokes

1. Chris Webb
2. Tim Budd

Age grade

1. Steve Crossman
2. Caity Rice

Most improved runner of the year – Ezme Brack

Bombed out – Tim Culshaw

Cross country

So some actual racing went on this weekend as well – on saturday the craziest XC of the season took place over at Tandle Hill. Where else has an XC course with a stile? or a field of slurry? Exactly. This is an XC race for *proper* runners. And as such, only a few of us lot turned up.

Coming out with a rather excellent age category win – by a mighty margin of 2 seconds, Ezme Brack shone through living up to her “most improved runner of the year” award. Caitlin Swan was there, gliding through mud and, well, mud, coming in a rather excellent 4th in her age group, just a smidgen off 3rd. Adam Crompton had a great day out despite the conditions, coming in a very creditable 25th.

In the ladies Kirsty Sharp had a hard fight at the front of the field, but came out on top, winning the whole flipping thing. Good work in some rather exciting conditions. Cheryl Stitt was next in, 23rd over the line, followed by Emma Rettig and Beccy Smith, Jo Brack, Beccy Ashworth and Alison Holt. The ladies were 4th team, 6th V35 team, 6th V40 team, 5th V45 team, and 3rd V50 team. Phew!

On the Gentlemens side of things, Stevie Knowles had a cracking race to finish 11th, swiftly followed by Dan Stinton in 56th. David Chrystie-Lowe was next, followed by Phil Swan, Matt Crompton and John Stephenson. The guys were 11th team and 8th V40 team.

Full results can be seen here.

Parkrun

Again – because of ice, snow and general miserable and slippy underfoot conditions, Glossop parkrun was cancelled. Others went ahead though…. the consolidated report is, as ever…. here.

Right, that’s all I have time for at the mo- This Thursday is the Winter Solstice, so we’ll be heading onto the hill for a quick snifter of something to drink. I’ll put something on facebook closer to the time – as it would be good to go somewhere a bit sheltered, but that will depend on the weather. If you’re coming, bring warm stuff, headtorch etc. You know the score. See you there.