Summer is back! The weekend report.

A fair amount of stuff happened this weekend, so I have been compiling this over the last few hours as various results and photos have been trickling in. If I haven’t included you in the report, I can only apologise on your behalf for not letting me know you were off doing something interesting. I personally found out just how much fun it is to have stitch again, and was also reminded why it is always good to take food along to eat at the end of an XC race. I thought we were winding down for the winter in terms of races, but it would seem not. So carry on racing you lot. And let me know what yer up to. Preferably before the Sunday evening….

Dark Peak 30

Jason Hart was the sole brave Glossopdaler to take on this significant 30 miler around bits of the Dark Peak. Never straying too far from the classic honeypots of the area it gives some lovely views of reservoirs and bits of Kinder etc. Or so I am told. Jason packed his picnic and yomped off around the Peak, enjoying sunshine, showers, breezes and squalls. So much like a normal summers day then. Jason finished in 6:56 despite the warm weather and exciting amounts of cramp along with a full compliment of toenails.

King of the Hill Marathon

Guy Riddell took part in this sprint distance event. True to form, he searches out the new races that no-one has ever heard of and sneaks in to snatch an unsuspecting podium place. This was no exception. Having secured a pass out, he then went on to eat his way through the short distance race (a piffling 26.2 miles), singing bad renditions of 80’s power ballads all the way. I wonder if that was the reason for everyone else letting him into 3rd place? No idea. Whatever it was he had a fantabulous time and enjoyed himself, laughing all the way to 3rd place overall. Superb effort, and I hope he kept the crown.

Shine a light night race

In aid of the Winnie Mombasa foundation, and organised by our own lovely Helen Thornhill, this lovely little runner was on Saturday night down at the Hargate hill stable area. It ran around some of the trails there (well known to those who speed rep along the flatter bits) as a 5k race and a 2k youngsters dash. There were a lot of people with head torches, some more powerful than others. John Stephenson went disguised as a waiter and managed to fool everyone into thinking he was going to get some canapes – so they let him through. A sneaky way of getting 1st V60, I have to say. Steve Pepper was out, his son Tom had evidently persuaded him to push the baby buggy the entire way around. No idea on the placings, but Tom was almost certainly about 2 seconds faster than Steve. Small children beating you in races Steve? You’re going to have to get used to that. I understand that Dan Ellingworth and Mandy Beames may well have been there too, though I have yet to have further corroboration of that. Will Mather also ran in the 5k and took a thoroughly no-nonsense approach, not even stopping to smell the roses, coming in a rather respectable 3rd. Even more importantly, his sons (names unknown to me – but aged 7 and 11) lets call them Luke and Han, did rather well in the kids run. Lets face it, 2k is a decent distance, no matter what your age. Excellent running there!

Manchester Half marathon

Ensuring that this report is in no way chronological, the Manc half was on Sunday. A few of our brave souls took part in this delightful pootle around the most scenic areas of our local city. The Glossopdale charge appears to have been led by the David Duo, with the results looking something like this:-

David “the Lowedown” Chrystie-Lowe 1:34:25 4th v60 (and 1/2 mara PB!)
David “chasing the other one” Boundy 1:35:57
Tony “1st V70” Hillier 1:41:59 1st V70
Rob “just wait til I’m V70” Sheldon 1:42:17
Susan “speedier than last year” Moore 2:33:33
David “the pacer” Munday 2:33:34
Mandy “laser” Beames 2:53:38

Amsterdam Marathon

Gliding across the sea towards the Hague, we had a few people wandering across the gap for a taste of Happy Pizza, interesting coffee shops and a 26.2 mile trot around a city which is lower than sea level. The southern contingent consisting of Claire Campbell may or may not have met up with the reprobate contingent consisting of Ian “Walton” McGarry and Alan “Barton” Scholefield, but I’m sure that they all behaved appropriately in a continental city where vast stocks of absinthe are available. As far as I can make out, Ian finished in 4:07:40 (3:54:42), with Alan at 4:31:31 (4:18:33). I understand that Claire finished in about 2 hours – so either she broke the Womens (and mens) record, the timing chip thing on Facebook tracking is out, or she did the half. I await the correct outcome with bated breath.

Paul Peters was apparently off doing something in Mid Lancs – Paul, I have no idea what it was, I just saw it on Strava. Im guessing it was some kind of XC thing? Im going to say that you thoroughly enjoyed yourself even though the weather was clement and ice creams were fully available.

Cross Country

The first of this seasons XC fixtures took place this week with the beginning of the rather competitive MACCL in Heaton Park. It was astonishingly dry and warm giving the roadies a distinct advantage over their cold weather/bog loving fell based adversaries. There were not enough ladies from glossop to get a team entry in (what with a number of them being over in Wales for the FRA’s), but there were enough for the lads to get 26th team and 27th Vet team, which was quite nice – though of course there is room for improvement.

Ladies – 12th Kirsty Sharp 37:14
16th Emma Rettig 37:49 (?) thats what the official results say… were you there Emma?!
209th Sarah Leah 54:20

Gents– 62nd Chris Webb 39:13
85th Tim Budd 40:04
131st Steve Crossman 41:59
192nd Greg Wasinski 44:37
231st Matt Crompton 46:47
298th Frank Fielding 49:55
334th Ian Oates 51:58
342nd John Stephenson 52:50
354th Andy Burnett 53:34

FRA relays

The logistics of getting a team of 6 (fit and able) runners to somewhere in the UK for them to run in a relay race should not be underestimated. This year it was the turn of Eryri over in Snowdonia to host the Hill relays and we had 3 teams, 2 ladies and one gents who went over to the delightful quarries of Llanberis to enjoy the racing and atmosphere. I suspect there are a number of stories to be told for this one, and I’m certainly not going to get them all down and written now, so there may be a midweek special relays report.

Parkrun

Anthony Johnson was back in town this weekend and proved his current level of fitness by busting out a new PR at Glossop Parkrun. Have a butchers at the consolidated report here.

Other stuff

Club Champs – if you want your parkrun time to be included in the Road and overall champs can you please let me know your fastest GLOSSOP park run time for 2017. There is no easy way for me to collate peoples fastest times for this single year. Let me know yours, I’ll verify it, and then give you points. If you don’t send me your time, you won’t get points. You have been warned.

Solstice run will be taking place on the evening of the 21st December. It’s a Thursday. More details to follow, but stick the date in your diary.