A most sociable time of the year

Whilst there seems to have been a little less racing this week, the blue and orange running massive has still been in action across the country.  There has also been a lot of sociable and fundraising related running nearer to home.

Manchester Area Cross Country League – Match 3 @ Arrowe Park (courtesy of Chris Webb)

Match 3 in the Manchester Area Cross Country League and the drive to Birkenhead for new venue Arrowe Park mustn’t have been too appealing as it was just me and David Christie-Lowe representing Glossopdale (Ed – to be fair, Ben Robertson did put in a super early appearance in the park). Joanne Brack was there too marshalling on behalf of the club and providing valuable pre-race beta on the course (“there’s a big tree on a downhill through the woods at head-height, be careful!) – thanks Jo! Anyway, sloppy underfoot conditions made the going slow but David and I both had decent runs. No results out yet, there’ll be on https://www.race-results.co.uk/results/2019/  later this evening/tomorrow. The next match is at Tatton Park on Saturday 11th January, hopefully we’ll have a better turnout!

Simonside Cairns Fell Race (courtesy of Emma Peters)

Simonside Cairns Fell Race was today which started in Rothbury, heading up to Simonside and other surrounding hills, getting in 18km and 650m elevation.   Other than the driving winds, it was a pretty ideal day for it with great views. Nothing special to report performance-wise as I ran with another runner for most of the race who wasn’t feeling great, but I hope to return another year and put down a better time! 

Power of 5k (courtesy of Paul Peters)

On Friday I was at the last 5k race in Lancaster for the year. For once I was actually flying the blue and orange vest up north and happily there is photographic evidence.  

It’s a flat fast course, and I went into it just wanting a baseline to see where I’m at. From the gun I was immediately by myself, too far behind the front 2, and a gap behind me. By 1km a fella behind me breezed past and I didn’t bother staying with, I was already working hard with a 3:06 first km.  From there I settled in and ran solo again until km 3 when a group of 3 came with me to take some of the pacing work off me.  We all stuck together until the last 500m when I tried to leave them behind. Unfortunately 2 of them had a killer finish, coming past in the last 100m, but I didn’t care, I knew I had my first ever sub 16 in the bag! 

Official results still aren’t out but I timed 15:53 for a nice PB to round off the year. Going forward, I’ll be taking that speed down to Glossop tip over Christmas to claim a coveted strava segment off a certain Mr Phillips… 

Bimble in the park junior run (courtesy of Luke Holme)

Ethan & Leonardo opted for some winter fun and raced round Alexandra Park. Really good fun run for the kids and money for the race being donated to In aid of children with cancer UK.  Ethan decided to run it on his own and as it’s a fun run the race isn’t timed so I’m not entirely sure how quick he ran it. Leonardo thought it was hilarious to be racing Pikachu and couldn’t stop laughing all the way round.  Super proud dad moment when Leo finished and he didn’t stop once (Ed – Yay!!!).

Elsewhere….. FB and Strava suggest that is it beginning to feel a lot like Christmas

• Tim Crookes yule yomped at Tatton
• Nick Ham had a Christmas Cracker at Litton
• Family Wallroth donned red suits and beards and dashed somewhere in Saddleworth

Festive fundraising…there are a number of Harrier-related fundraising activities on the go this month

1. Will’s 500 mile challenge: December has started and so I’ve started the challenge I set myself and to raise some money for the local charity Mummy’s Star. As most know by now it means me running the same amount of miles as the date in December with this week being the easiest week so it’s been nothing special. Starting last Sunday with 1 mile, I did the Marple Junior park run with Oliver (my lad). Then every day since I’ve added a mile. Today I joined Mark Davenport’s time trail but ran it at a more social pace with a lot of you lot then I had to add a couple of miles on to the end to make it 8 miles. Thank you all who have joined me this week – don’t fear if you haven’t yet, the big miles are still to come so let me know if you want to join for some or all of a run. I’ll try to keep my Facebook page up to date so keep an eye on that too. Don’t forget to donate on my JustGiving page if you can.

2. December Daily Dash: Continuing the fundraising theme, albeit with lower levels of insanity, Jo, Charmayne, Adele, Emma R. and Elanor are each running at least 5km every day in December as part of Sue Ryder’s annual December Daily Dash event.

3. Helping Santa: GDH will be accompanying Santa and Glossop Mountain Rescue as they fundraise around Simmondley tomorrow (9/12).  The meeting point is at the Reliance Garage on Turnlee Road at 18:15 if anyone fancies helping out (see Becky’s FB post for more info).  This is a fantastic opportunity to support our local mountain rescue team would not hesitate to come out to rescue us, day or night.  It is also a really fun, Christmassy thing to do.

Other Running Related Points of Note….

• The 2020 club champs have been published – huge thanks to Emma Rettig and the team for sorting these out (see Matt Crompton’s post on FB for more details).
• Tim and Chris are in the process of arranging an informal evening of AL (long) fell race demystification sometime over the festive period, details will no doubt be posted on FB in due course.
• The club Christmas party is next Sunday (15/12).  Festive walking/ running followed by festive eating, prize giving and socialising – what is not to like?!?  There is another FB post from Becky on this.   

Parkrun Corner

As always, Harriers were in action at a number of different parkrun locations this weekend:  Richmond (Julie Eyre), Woodbank (Nick Ham), Hyde (Des Mitchell & Tony Hillier), Lyme Park (Cathy Murray), Cheadle Hulme (Craig Leith), Watergrove (David and Holly Munday), Bakewell (Tracey Robinson), Alexandra (Rob Webster), Marple Junior parkrun (Caitlin Swan) and, of course, Glossop (which featured an amazing 30 harriers, Day 7 of Will’s crazy challenge and a PB for Lucy Wasinski).  

We love reading and compiling tales of everyone’s racing and running exploits, especially when tinsel is involved.  Ian is on report writing duty next week so please dig out your festive sparkles, do lots more racing and don’t forget to tell him all about it at gdhweeklyreports@gmail.com. Have a good week and happy running!