“Not a weekend for the faint of heart” weekend report

Well, it seems to have been a week of the long and hardcore races. None of this namby-pamby run up and down a Single hill. No… multiple hills, exciting weather, sense of humour failures and general all round fun. Sounds like there have been some good epics out there this week. Thanks for the race reports, Tim Culshaw, Kasia, Zoe and Steve Pepper.

ROC Mountain Marathon

First up – a little something smuggled back from the Lake district by Tim Culshaw…

Matt (Huxford) and I headed up to the lakes to do the long score course, both unsure of

our fitness. After two hours, we had no doubts about our fitness – it was pretty terrible. I couldn’t go up, and Matt’s sore foot meant that he couldn’t go down. An hour thrashing through heather led to a sense of humour failure. The nav was going pretty well but unfortunately we’d planned a route for people who could run. A strung-out, near-pointless grumble to the finish got us home inside the time limit for a very mediocre 30th place. Thereafter, things were looking up. We tucked into our dinner of smoked salmon, gouda and champagne truffles and went to sleep, our only worry being that Jasmin Paris and her mum were just 30 points behind us, our tent was secured with a shoelace, and our balloon bed balloons had gone bad.

On the second day, we mostly remembered how to run, which was good because we gave ourselves a 5 minute handicap by being late for the start. It still wasn’t pretty but we staggered round for 9th on the second day and 21st overall.

 

Sandstone trail race

Steve Pepper was off looking at Sandstone outcrops….  27.5km of very runnable trail through the pritty wooded hills of Cheshire. Managed to superman twice, once enjoying the view and once admiring a large dog.
Chilled out organisers, nice flapjack, and a thoroughly pleasant way to spend a Sunday morning.

Groovy Kinder Love

Zoe was the designated roving reporter for this new AL which is just on our doorstep…. The first running of a route which seems well planned to avoid most of the well known race routes around Kinder. 4 of us signed up and were duly kit checked and briefed. Jamie Helmer and Immy made up the”GC contenders ” group whilst Mark D foolishly elected to accompany Zoe in the “laughing group ” toward the rear. The “laughing group” became the “wobbly bottom lip group ” after the climb to Kinder Low, on meeting a fatigued and emotional Immy. Rumour has it Jamie also suffered a sense of humour failure or jelly legs or some such other fate. It was a genuinely enjoyable to be out on such a deceptively hard-core route on such a clear day. Brown Knoll retained its reputation as the nadir of any race and jelly babies and smiles atop South Head and Mount Famine spurred the racers on to the end- and a weary, but cake fuelled debrief. Notable excellent support was received by Lins Palmer and Dan Stinton.

Pedol Peris

We had a couple of peeps over in Wales this weekend – Kasia sent me a race report about the epic that is Pedol Peris… : I went to N Wales. Did the Pedol Peris. Went bit quick then tried to chase first 30 people. Felt mega underpowered cause of stomach issues prior to the race and loosing too much water I think. But persevered. Got good line down Glyder -> Pen Y Pass which lifted morale a bit. Dave and Twig were crewing for me. Got some juice and water and carried on. Gained some places going up Lliwedd then fluffed the bit going up Snowdon. Probably lost about 2min cause went up Watkin path instead of direct scree line. Snowdon was all fog and crowded horror show. Went down as quickly as possible. Followed the train line and some sneaky little lines to the last hill – Moel Cynghorion. Then sponge bob grassy descent and flatish last bits brought me to finish. 4h 52min. 8th lady and 37th overall out of 88 I think. Was thinking that it will take me 5h 30min to complete so pretty pleased with the result overall.

Trail des Aiguilles Rouges

Roving runner and now enjoying “funemployment” in Chamonix Jenny Ross continued the current tradition of this weekend of doing long and arduous events by running the Trail des Aigulles Rouges. You don’t really need to know much more than her Strava stats…. 55k, 4774m of ascent. The first 3 hours of which were in the dark. Now THAT is a race. Nice running Jenny.

Littleborough 10k

From the looks of Strava, Jim Talbot was out at Littleborough doing the 10k… a route famed for being 10k long? Um – and goes around a reservoir? Maybe? Im getting this from strava just in case you were wondering….

Parkrun

Looks like Sarah Johnson was the only PBer at Glossop Parkrun this week…. but Josie Swan was first lady home. Nice one Josie. Consolidated report is here.

Other stuff going on

I have heard that entries are open for the Trigger, so if this report has inspired you to do a long cold race, thats the one. And as the legendary JH once said, you can’t call yourself a fellrunner til you’ve done the Trigger. Right, Pepper?

Webby has pointed out that if you’re into serial amounts of flat distance, the Grand union canal race is open for entries as well… it’s only 145 miles. At less than a hundred quid that’s a bargain, right?

Next week is the Hodgeson Brothers Mountain relay, and with any luck no-one else on the team is going to call me in the week and tell me they are injured/broken/can’t do it…. though if they do, it would be appreciated if they did so sooner rather than later so that I can bully someone else to do it.

XC is coming up – Webby has been posting stuff about EA numbers that you should have all got by now. Tis the season to be , um… cold? wet? Muddy. Yes. At least one of those, more likely to be all of them.

That’s about it really.