HEAT WAVE! oh, no. It’s June. That’s meant to happen.

Welcome to the middle of June, and entirely expected weather has come to the country. Yes, the expected unexpected heat of the summer has finally shone through and a load of people were inadvisadly running races in the midst of it. Well – you know what they say about Mad Dogs.

Farnham Creek 10k

From the Southern extent of our long armed reach, messages have arrived by carrier pigeon to inform me that Claire Campbell had a great, if slightly toasty time down at Farnham on the Creek 10k. Whether this means running alongside the creek, or, indeed, through or up it, I am not entirely sure. Being familiar with the ingenious stupidity of runners and their propensity to think anything is a challenge, the latter two would really not surprise me. The Results are not out yet, but One suspects that Claire will have managed to retain her impressive record of being first Glossopdale back in almost every race she has done this year!

Red Bull Steeple Chase

Matt Huxford felt at home this weekend, running around several villages in the South, from spire to spire in the company of a large group of Red Bull swilling hipsters. Matt donned his skinny jeans and coiffed his goatee whilst chatting enthusiastically about extreme sports and craft beer in order to fit in, a role which he apparently had no difficulty in slipping into. The race format is essentially a “devil takes the hindmost” race in which a proportion of runners are culled from the race after each of the 3 spires, with only the final 20 allowed to get to the final spire. Matt, despite his gammy ankle and self confessed dislike of corporate sponsered events, came 23rd, so was unfortunately timed out at the 3rd of 4 spires. Still, a good day was had, and it means he has no “ankle” excuses anymore, so make sure he gets out training.

Marple Carnival 10k

Carnivals are always good fun. Gentle days ambling around in the sun, eating candyfloss and throwing coconuts at passers-by while cakes are sold by the local League of Ladies… Marple Carnival was indeed a full carnival of delight as 3 of our number got down to business. Rich White was spearheading the attack, coming in 26th overall in 44:35. He was swiftly followed by Pete Wallroth in 79th place -55:16, and Emma Powell rounded out the numbers in 145th at 70:16. I have no idea if the race included at coconut shy at the halfway point, if it didn’t, they probably should…

Tour of Tameside

If you have been anywhere near the facebook page these last few days, you really can’t have missed the massive amount of postage and hype-age about the Tour. It’s an epic combination of 4 races over 4 days, made a whole lot more fun by the above average weather we’ve been subjected to in the past week. Essentially, you’re looking at a 10k, followed by a Fell race, then a Half marathon, topped off by a nice little 7mile “dash” on the last day. Wow. that’s a decent amount of running. There were so many stories, lines of conversation, exciting developments and general banter going on throughout the entire thing, that I really cannot do it justice here.

Instead, I have tried to sort out the times and placings of everyone that I could find on the overall results (which are here)

First Name	Surname	Gender Position	Category	Category Position	X Trail 10K	Stage Position	Hell on Fell	Stage Position	Hero Half	Stage Position	Hyde 7	Stage Position	Chip Time	Chip Position
Ben	Naylor	17	MOPEN	9	00:41:27	26	00:42:59	16	01:36:04	17	00:48:53	24	03:49:23	19
Daniel	Oldham	20	MV40	7	00:39:51	14	00:42:25	10	01:42:00	29	00:48:18	23	03:52:34	22
William	Mather	44	MOPEN	21	00:44:01	54	00:47:35	47	01:45:55	47	00:53:44	61	04:11:15	51
Guy	Riddell	59	MV40	17	00:45:07	69	00:50:15	77	01:52:24	76	00:56:24	87	04:24:10	69
Tony	Hillier	62	MV65	2	00:48:21	118	00:53:31	111	01:50:10	67	00:55:01	75	04:27:03	72
Wendy	Trelease	13	FV40	5	00:47:43	102	00:51:43	93	01:54:41	89	00:54:47	72	04:28:54	79
Rebecca	Smith	16	FV45	4	00:51:22	160	00:53:36	112	01:53:54	82	00:58:19	107	04:37:11	94
Helen	Thornhill	29	FV45	7	00:51:52	167	00:57:51	161	02:07:14	155	01:03:02	161	04:59:59	148
Marie	Williamson	69	FV40	18	01:00:23	287	01:08:27	266	02:27:50	241	01:11:21	230	05:48:01	245
David	Munday	189	MOPEN	72	01:10:02	326	01:22:51	311	02:49:43	289	01:22:18	280	06:44:54	288

As you can see, the guys and girls had a fantastic few days, facing a gruelling challenge and came away with vast amounts of bling and t-shirts. Not bad for a weekend and a bit racing!

Parkrun

It was the Young Guns that came to the fore this weekend, with Josie Swan and Adam Crompton being the starts of the PB show at Glossop Parkrun. Josie now up to 67.01% and Adam hitting a 63.86% age grading. Nice work! Full breakdown here.

Stuff this week

Right you ‘orrible lot – This week is the Summer solstice. As is traditional, we’ll be heading up onto the hill to celebrate it appropriately – with as much home-made gin and vodka as we can feasably carry, and a few snacks besides. The ACTUAL solstice is at 5am on Wednesday. So we will be going up on Tuesday evening.

I’m not going to set a leaving time, but we shall be gathering at the Spring Cabin end of Shelf Benches at about 7:40pm. This should give walkers enough time to get there, and runners enough time to go off and do some fancy thing before getting there in order to tire themselves out. (it’s 2.5km from the turning circle).

I suspect there will be a posse heading out from the turning circle at 7pm, but whatever your decision, bring normal hill kit, something to toast the solstice with, and a bit of Jollity. The Chairman will hopefully be there with some well matured something-or-other-flavour-gin, so Jollity may well be enforced.

NOTE – if the weather forecast changes and it all goes to pot, we may relocate somewhere else. For the moment it is Shelf Benches, but be aware that this may change, if it does, I’ll post on here on Tuesday afternoon.

 

This weekend coming is Round Sheffield Run – if you haven’t got a place, you won’t be running. But equally, if you haven’t got a place, you could consider heading to Hayfield for the Kinder Trog – entry on the day, and its in the Fell Champs. Go and nick points off Steve Pepper, he’ll be really chuffed about that!