End of January dearth of races weekend report

Ah, tis a waxing crescent moon that rises above Glossopdale this evening, and the glow of light pollution from Manchester, Sheffield and all those people with uplighters on their houses renders the stars yet still less visible than they should be. Having said that, it really isn’t all that often that I’m getting out for evening runs these days, what with the new fangled invention of daylight, so I really shouldn’t pretend that I’m complaining.

So what has been happening this week?

Well, as you all know there was a rather splendid shin-dig at the George this Wednesday just gone. For once the committee wasn’t outnumbered by the audience at the AGM, so we took it on ourselves to make it as short and painless as possible.

Race-wise, there wasn’t a whole lot to report on this week. However, I must make a rather important mention of something that was missed last week due to a late coming of the report: Last Saturday Josie Swan represented the High Peak in the raced in the Derbyshire County Crosscountry Champs. She had a marvellous run with some close racing on the 2nd lap, but burst to freedom from those around her to come in a rather splendid 17th. Great to see some good racing from from the up and coming of Glossopdale.

This weekend saw the welcome(?) return of the Marmot Dark Mountains Mountain Marathon. The premise being that it is an entire Mountain Marathon (ie a 2 day event), where you carry ALL your gear for camping, sleeping, etc. but you don’t actually use any of the kit. You simply run around in the dark and get lost for the night. I’m really selling it, aren’t I? So we had a couple of teams going into this, one, unfortunately, due to work commitments was unable to get to the start line, the other, consisting of Tim Culshaw and sometime Glossopdale interloper John Ryan ran (somewhat ambitiously?) in the elite category. The terrain was tough and the navigation was some of the hardest that Tim had come across- and thats saying something for someone who has got lost and found in more places than I care to think about. Unfortunately the dynamic duo retired after 9 checkpoints and 7hours and 45 minutes of floundering around in a bog. To be fair, they acquitted themselves very well indeed, and I can’t think of many others that, had they the balls to enter, would have done any better. Reports that they were wearing Spandex Batman and Robin costumes are unfounded.

Beyond that, there was, of course, parkrun, and a load of people reccying for the Mickleden straddle race which is next week- the second in the club fell counters (so it’s a good thing I have the spreadsheet up to date so far…). Other people have been enjoying the hills, the frosty mornings and general marathon running sessions. I hear that the Skusinator is starting to do hill reps (Ben Mounsey, watch out!), and has posted as such on the facebook page- get out and join him if you dare. Them hills don’t get run on their own, you know.

This weeks Thursday night run is meant to be a pub run, organised by me. A couple of minor issues…. I haven’t thought of a pub to go from yet, and I might end up working. Hmmm. So. If anyone has a preference of pub, shout up (it ideally needs to be runnable from on fell and road, and have at least one decent beer on tap), and if anyone wants to help out in terms of leading, that’d be amaaazing.

Anything else? Goodness. From an extensive trawl of facebook, strava, twitter instagram, myspace, fra forum, graffiti on the wall and mudclaw tracks on the hill, I can’t think of anything. So before my laptop runs out of steam, I’ll post this up. And as a final huzzah, I shall leave you with a lovely picture of Rich White taking receipt of the most coveted of Glossopdale Harriers trophies, the Bombed Out Award.

Rich getting the Bombed out award from Tim . Well done Rich!

 

If I’ve missed anyone out – let me know, and I’ll be sure to make something up about you as an amendment, or next week.