“It’s a Super Blue waning eclipsoid moon from outer space!” weekend report

Dammit, you lot have been busy. A slight sniff of the fact the days are getting longer combined with a bit of snow on the hills and every blimmin one of your is off doing races and gallivanting around without a care in the world. I dunno…. me and my long suffering hands. My fingers are going to be a bloody pulp by the time I finish this report.

Longshaw night race

So first up this week was the Amos Clan, heading off again for another night race. I

dunno about you, but I reckon that they’re planning something… maybe Liam has his eyes on the High Peak Marathon? Or maybe a bit of a Round in the Lake district coming up? Well, whatever their plans, it would seem it all went off swimmingly, with Liam starting off with his Dad, and then getting a bit bored with the pace, lighting the touch paper and blasting off into the night, eventually coming 8th overall. The boy has some swift feet, that’s for sure. Paul manfully carried on without his son to light the trail (and I suspect that he probably carried all the snack as well, what with Liam offloading as much stuff as possible for his speedy exit) – and crossed the line in 50th. I reckon about 120 ran. But I could be making that up entirely.

Mad dog 10k

Tony Hillier was out in force across the way in …..Pause while I check strava…… Southport. Yes, Southport…. I’ve never heard of Northport. Is there one? Hang on. Google. ………Ah yes there is. But it’s in Scotland. But I digress. So Tony headed across to Southport to take part in the appropriately named “Mad Dog 10k”. I believe he didn’t need to take a mad dog along with him, he merely needed to prove his credentials. How this was done is a state secret, so don’t go asking me, him, or indeed googling it. It seems that Tony did some proper good runnin’ and came in a totally (un)surprising 1st V70. Which is blimmin good going. Not only that, but a certain Jo Pavey was giving out the prizes, which is nearly as special as getting a prize and a kiss from Joss himself. Nice one Tony.

Dark and White Trail Spring series

Pete Wallroth and Lucy Wasinski were off down to the deepest darkest White Peak for the first of the D&W trail series this weekend. (well, Greg was down there too, and ran the route… but as he didn’t pay an entry fee, we can expunge that from our collective memory, right?) They were in separate waves (what is this? a surfing contest?) so didn’t see each other. The route looked like quite a nice little run out of about 16km with a decent amount of ascent and corresponding descent. As for timings and placings, well I’m not psychic, and they haven’t published them yet. But when they do – they will (probably) be here… Lets just say that Pete took some time out to take a picture of a rock and seemed to enjoy being in the sunshine a bit too much, while Lucy made it her mission to get back in time to eat as many bits of chocolate caramel shortbread as possible. Damn good choices.

Shropshire weekend… Titterstone Clee

What a wonderful little race this is. Not much to go wrong with it… from the bottom of the hill you run to the top in a kind of diagonal fashion – taking in the delights of a short section of road, bog, bog, trails, scree and a windblown top, followed by much the same, but in reverse. (the route, not the runners). The lovely lot who were down in Shropshire for the double enjoyed themselves immensely, especially with their custom made maps, and blasted through the various terrains without mercy. It would appear from the race website that Andy “I dont race much” Oliver came in 3rd place, and do my eyes deceive me? 1st V40. Alice”technically hasn’t paid her subs to this club yet” Swift,( an occasional of this parish, and honourary babe for the weekend because she is on a trip with us lot) was 2nd lady, while Immy “pocket rocket” Trinder ran a blinder to come in 3rd lady, a mere 11 seconds behind. Mark “I’m going to beat Zoe if it kills me” Davenport acquitted himself excellently with a 12th overall (and 3rd MSEN), with Zoe “just you wait Davenport, I’ve got a plan” Barton just a place behind him, and 1st WV40. Lindsay “I’ve finally got a weekend off!” Palmer came in not a few minutes later and picked up 2nd WV50. Flipping heck. Is that a prize for every single one of us that ran? Nice sweep, kids.

3rd – Andy Oliver – 25:49 (1st V40)
5th Alice Swift 27:06 (1st WSEN)
7th Immy Trinder 27:17 (2nd WSEN)
12th Mark Davenport 28:59 (3rd MSEN)
13th Zoe Barton 29:19 (1st WV40)
32nd Lins Palmer 38:57 (2nd WV50)

Shropshire Weekend… Long Mynd

So the lovely people that did the Titterstone Clee probably then went off to enjoy cream teas and scones in preparation for the fun run the next day. A couple of others headed down specifically for the Mynd on Sunday. For those who don’t know it, basically it is “merely” a medium length fell race, but is backloaded with hills that get ever steeper and longer. Hill-arious for those watching, not so much for those “running”. Unfortunately as of this point, I don’t have the results to hand – they haven’t been put online yet… the race finished 4 hours ago, what are they playing at? So from what I can deduce from Matt Crompton and Lins’ pictures are that Matt Huxford took a picnic with him, and managed to do pretty well, despite being so navigationally challenged that he was probably meant to be down there for the Clee the day before but went north instead of south. Andy Oliver overcame his wooden legs from the excellent performance the day before and maybe came in second Glossopdale, closely followed by the irrepressible Immy Trinder – whom I suspect was giving Andy a decent run for his money on the final couple of hills. Zoe and Mark ran much of the first part of the race together, trying for a harmonious relationship that included haribo and pizza, but it would seem it all went wrong at some point as Zoe accelerated away from Mark in the later stages of the race and in a turn around from the day before, stuffed Mark into place. Alice – sorry darling, I have no idea where you came as the photographers failed me!

I’m sure that everyone had an excellent time on this weekend away organised by Zoe, and John Hewitt bets that she brought tea bags this time.

Right. So. It would seem that *just* as I was going to pull the trigger on this, the results magically appeared – thanks muchly to Mark Davenport for pointing this out…. so here we go.

23rd Matt “the picniker” Huxford” 2:01:54
35th Alice “so when exactly were you planning on joining us?” Swift 2:06:54 (1stFSEN)
81st Andy “no vegan custard for me” Oliver 2:20:53
96th Immy “Can’t do downhills? Watch this….” Trinder 2:25:52
117th Zoe “Aha – See! there was a plan!” Barton 2:32:08
119th Mark “Bloody Barton. She had a plan.” Davenport 2:32:52

Kong MMM Bethesda

Lynne and I went down to Wales this weekend for the Mini Mountain Marathon in Bethesda. I got an SI card for Christmas so thought I’d better make use of it. The weather was amazing – definitely the best day of the weekend to run. Long story short: I put in an early Bombed Out entry in by losing my Christmas Present within 2 hours of setting off, cue much swearing and 30 mins of searching in vain for the bloody thing while getting cold and losing all sense of perspective. I flounced off and didn’t get any more points, but the nice people at the end asked me where I had been and filled in a points score for me on the computer, so I did get a score. Lynne had a lovely time booting around the welsh hills, getting in some nav practice away from the shire, and we both enjoyed vast amounts of soup, tea and cake coz neither of us managed to stay out the whole 4 hours. In the end, I was 146th and Lynne was 174th. Lovely day on the hills though.

Parkrun

Jo Brack ran a PB this week. AND came 1st lady in Glossop parkrun. Evidently being inspired by various daughters of hers. Here’s your consolidated report – and word to the wise – watch out for Ben Tetler– he’s getting speedy again.

Other sundry bits and bobs

Well – people were out on the tops. Pictures speak louder than words. Thanks Mark Harrison.

Other things that I might need to mention

Um. Oh yes – the Young Swans had a Judo comp this weekend and according to their totally unbiased father, they totally kicked the proverbial. It ain’t running, but it enables me to get in a gag (see below). Definitely get out on the hill in the snow – its flipping great. Thanks to all those of you who did the Mile challenge in January. Good effort. I have as many times as I think there are, it’s a bit of a pain with the whole age grading thing (for the age grade champs) so bear with me while I sort that out. In fact, I might just whack the times up on the road champs page anyway. (we’re thinkin of going the other way with the numbers as well – as in, winner gets 1 point, 2nd gets 2, and so on and so forth – the winner at the end of the year is the person with fewest points…. reason for this is because with 200+ members, if a load of people turn up to one race and we start champs points at 30 and go down to 0, there might be a few people with minus points – as it were…. Just so you know).

Right. That’s it. I’m off to dangle my digits in a pan of warm water.