Sent: 23 January 2011 21:20
Subject: V S Update - dates (and races to enter), Brass Monkey results,
Barcelona and Dartmoor reports
More dates
Tuesday 25 January – track training 7pm prompt at
Leeds Met Carnegie
Sunday 30 January - Peco Race 4 – at John Smeaton –
good turnout required, another win for the men and women wll put us in the lead
Tuesday 1 February – Tuesday training at Leos followed
by Lasagne – order by 10pm Sunday 30 January to [email protected] stating
whether you want carnivore or vegetarian lasagne and whether you also want
apple pie.
Saturday 5 February – Rombalds Stride 23 miles trail
(V S Grand Prix) – no entries on the day. http://www.ldwa.org.uk/challenge_events/show_event.php?list_option=S&list_type=F&event_id=4341
for details, you can enter on a Standard Entry Form (see LDWA website)
Sunday 6 February – Dewsbury 10k (V S Grand Prix) – no
entries on the day. Go to www.ukresults.net.
The paper entry form on the website says entries closed yesterday but the
online entry on www.ukresults.net is
definitely still open and, if I remember from last year, is likely to stay open
for another week (but don’t hold me to it!)
Saturday 26 February – Noonstone race (first race in V
S Fell Championship) – rest of Fell Championship programme will be published on
website soon and in next V S Update
A message from Sara Korn. If you are interested,
please contact Sara directly:
We have 5 places in this year’s
Do you have any runners in your club that may be
interested in filling a place? They would need to raise a minimum of £200
which covers the cost of the place –the sponsorship can then be split 50/50 to
a charity of their choice.
Kind regards, Sara
Sara Korn
Fundraising Co-Ordinator
t: +44(0)113 218-5843
f: +44(0)113 203-4915
The Marjorie and
Moortown
LS17 6AZ
Brass Monkey – race results
It was 5 degrees Centigrade so not cold enough to
freeze any parts of a brass monkey but most runners were pleased with this and
decided not to argue the trades descriptions act with Knavesmire Harriers.
Andy May looked resplendently bright in his brand new
Valley Striders vest and was first of 41 Striders in 10th place
overall. Only 2 places behind was Rob De’Giovanni. Quite a few PBs
I believe.
Three new members (joined 2011) were in action and I’m
allocating points to them even though none of them wore a Striders vest.
Richard Balshaw has joined us 2nd claim so was running in a Bingley
vest. Simon Duckworth and Paul Milnes only joined on Tuesday to no time
to get to Ilkley.
Points are allocated on chip times.
Full results at http://www.sportsystems.co.uk/ss/results/Brass%20Monkey%20Half%20Marathon/563
Chip G.P
Gun Gun
Time Pts
Pos Time
Andy
May
1:13:58 100 8
1:13:59
Rob De'Giovanni
1:14:25 99 12
1:14:26
Richard Balshaw
1:18:04 98 40
1:18:06 2nd claim
Rich
Smith
1:19:54 98 61
1:20:01
Paul
Kaiser
1:21:33 96 90
1:21:43
Dan
Murray
1:22:40 93 106
1:22:49
Ian
Rosser
1:23:43 92
119 1:24:00
Gwil
Thomas
1:23:55 91 118
1:23:58
James Tarran
1:27:55 89 207
1:28:11
Nick
Barnes
1:30:32 88 274
1:30:42
John Wallace
1:30:46 86 286 1:31:07
Eric
Green
1:30:49 85 278
1:30:55
Liz
Wood
1:30:52 84 289
1:31:12
John Batchelor
1:30:56 83 294
1:31:16
Simon Redshaw
1:32:10 81 332
1:32:43
Bob
Jackson
1:34:44 78 392
1:35:02
Gary Sutherland
1:36:17 77 449
1:36:59
Patrick Barrett
1:36:31 76 443
1:36:47
Keith Brewster
1:37:59 72 515
1:38:26
Mick
Tinker
1:39:04 70 552
1:39:39
Paul Sanderson
1:39:19 69 554
1:39:43
Michaela McGarry
1:41:29 67 674
1:43:03
Pat McGarry
1:41:29 67 675
1:43:03
Leroy Sutton
1:41:56 65 644
1:42:16
Simon Duckworth
1:43:28 64 701
1:43:48
Chloe Hudson
1:45:40 63 791
1:46:71
Ruth Warren
1:47:21 62
864 1:49:09
Sarah
Smith
1:48:49 61 875
1:49:32
Kirsty Everett
2:00:39 59 1237 2:01:17
Paul
Milnes
2:11:01 58 1422 2:11:01
See website for Grand Prix table after 4 races.
The battle for the Men’s Championship is already interesting as a different
runner has won each race – Gwil, Rob, Simon and Andy. 79 Striders have
already run 1 or more race, and there are 7 ever-presents – Gwil, Kevin, Ian S,
Dan M, Alistair, Bob J, and Sue. But how many ever-presents will there be
after the weekend 5 and 6 February – will anyone run Rombalds and Dewsbury?
(not me, I did it one year and never again!)
Finally, two race reports that I’ve just found
in my inbox!
Barcelona 10k – race report from
The idea of running a race abroad on New Year’s Eve,
and so spending New Year away, has appealed to me for a little while. A
10k race in one of our favourite cities,
The race itself starts in the daylight at 5.30pm on
New Year’s Eve. With 9,000 runners the start is a little chaotic. However the
race numbers that had been arranged for us were in the “runners” pen behind the
elite athletes. Once you managed to get into the pen and the race started, you
were able to get into your stride pretty quickly. The course is very much round
the central part of Barcelona , east of La Rambla, for those who know the city,
and flat and fast. Indeed sub 29 minute times were expected if the Africans had
been there “prize hunting”, but as they were not the winning time was a little
outside 30 minutes. Whilst the atmosphere was good I was a little disappointed
with the numbers watching, for such a large event in a big city. I did however
hear a couple of screams for “Valleeeee”, as I ran past in my Striders vest. As
the race unfolds it quickly turns dark, and it is night when you finish. The
temperature was 14 degrees when we ran, a change to the temperatures we had
been experiencing at home. Nobody had told the Spanish that the weather was
warm and ideal for an evening 10k – most of the local runners had at least 2
layers of clothes on!
We were pleased with our times – Jake took 6 minutes
of his PB, running 52.26. Carole finished in exactly 50.00 and I ran 2 seconds
slower than in the Abbey Dash, 40.37. We had good reason to be satisfied. The
night before had been neither early or sober!
I can recommend the travel company Running Crazy for
those wanting to take part in overseas races. This small company run by Malcolm
Hargreaves, target various races throughout the year and provide an
excellent service in organising trips for groups of varying sizes of runners.
You are met at the airport and guided to your hotel. Your race numbers are
collected and delivered to you. A group pasta meal is organised for the night
before the race. You are guided to the start of the race and back to the
airport when it is time to leave, and by guided I mean they travel with you so
you don’t get lost. Malcolm is a sort of Patrick Barrett – but much more
sober!!
OMM 2010
Another
October and another OMM.
Due to the
lack of significant climbs on
However,
on day 1
Some 2
hours after the winners had arrived we shuffled into the finish after about 8
hours and 13 minutes of running and uphill marching. We turned out to be
in 28th place.
Typically,
just as we arrived the weather started to deteriorate. The rain came down
and the wind on the exposed campsite picked up. We got chilled quickly
while putting the tent up but immediately felt better once we were squeezed
inside it. As the evening progressed the rain and wind increased.
We ate our dehydrated food as the tent started to drip. By 3 am my down
sleeping bag was pretty soggy, the wind was battering my end of the tiny tent
resulting in wet nylon slapping me in the face every 30 seconds or so. I
wasn't getting a great night's sleep. At this point I decide to put on
full waterproofs and then get back in the sleeping bag. Exhaustion took
over and I dozed fitfully for periods until we were woken at 5:45 by the
countdown to the start. The top teams begin at 7:00 but we could have a
lie in (sort of!) before getting ready for an 8:27 start.
It was
actually a relief to get started on day 2. We wore our waterproof tops
all day through various grades of rain, drizzle or mist. Navigation
proved to be tougher on day 2 with some long legs across largely featureless
wastes of bog and tussock. All the overnight rain seemed to just sit in
the top layer of peat making
We managed
the hard long sections reasonably well but later in the day the tiredness and
cold started to affect our decisions. At one relatively easy control we
lost over 30 minutes, going wrong repeatedly and getting disorientated.
We stopped and sheltered behind a Tor (big rock outcrop), put on more clothes
and ate some food. We worked out a damage limitation navigation strategy,
aiming for a significant feature and working backwards to the control.
This worked in the end and we pressed on.
The next
challenge was a big scary river crossing. A number of teams had collected
there. In the end we decided to do a big detour to a bridge.
However, we found Mountain Rescue supervising a rope across the river a short
distance away. This still required almost full emersion while clinging onto
a rope to make the crossing. Another 15 minutes at least were 'wasted'
here.
Now, we
could dare to think that completing the event was achievable. The next few
controls passed with further minor confusions and mistakes but we got
through. We finished after 7 hours and 24 minutes.
Our total
time was 15:37 for the 54+ miles. We came 37th out of 47 finishers which was a
bit disappointing but who cares, we did it. Our finish line photo shows
two wide grins.