Hello all
Welcome to this weeks round-up. A busy week of racing with a mixed bag of races but lets get started with some reminders first.
- Don’t forget it’s the Wirral Multi-terrain race series this month with the first one tonight (1st Sept). A great little race series which are not too challenging (generally 5 miles) and a good warm up gig for the cross country season ahead. We need 5 men + 3 ladies to make a full team and at £1 per race they are a bit of a bargain! All details can be found here http://www.stevesaunders.co.uk/mterrain.htm.
- Tim Palmer has kindly put together a comprehensive race calendar which can be found in the pane at the side of the blog under “2015 event listing / race calendar” or by clicking this link https://helsbyrunningclub.wordpress.com/2015-event-listing/. It’s an excellent resource of information and has all the clubs counters plus other races listed.
Road
We had our 10th road counter of the season at the Ellesmere 10k on Sunday (how time flies!) with a somewhat low attendance from the Green Army, which was great news for those looking to grab some club championship points! Excellent running from Chris Murray who bagged himself a new 10k PB (after eventually finding the correct Ellesmere!) and the ever resilient Bish getting a top ten finish and age category win. Well done to all who took part.
Chris has sent in a brilliant report for this race which can be seen below:
“Initially I thought this race was in Ellesmere Port not knowing there was an actual place called Ellesmere so leaving what I thought was loads of time I only managed to arrive a few minutes before the start as people were already lining up to race. The weather was great and not overly warm which was a nice change from the humidity of the previous days. The course itself was relatively flat and started from Ellesmere school meandering along country lanes and scenic tow paths with the finish back the school. A nice coffee and a cake at the finish sealed a great race and a great day.
There were some impressive results with Colin Bishop finishing in a great time of 35.10 and coming 1st in his age category – well done Colin! Everybody else’s results were equally as impressive. All in all it was a great day and a great race, I know I’ll be back next year chasing down a new PB.”
Helsby results below:
10th Colin Bishop 35.10
103rd Jim Jones 42.45
140th Chris Murray 45.03 (10k PB)
219th Geoff Collins 48.07
402nd Tanya Downes 55.33
408th Donna Geer 55.55
434th Jo Farwell 57.13
Full results here http://galeforce-events.s3.amazonaws.com/Results/Ellesmere10k2015.html
SA Llego 7
Geoff Collins also ran a 10k on 22nd August at the end of his holiday in Mallorca! He has sent in this excellent report, thanks Geoff and well done.
“SA Llego 7 Malpas-Bonaire, Mallorca – 22 August .
What better way to spend a Saturday evening at the end of a holiday in Mallorca – a 10k race! So my green vest had another outing – this time in Bonaire (pronounced Bon-eye-ray). It’s a very attractive quiet coastal resort in the hilly North East of Mallorca not far from the old town of Alcudia.
Bonaire sits below an imposing hill called Talaia d’ Alcudia. A hill well worth climbing for the stunning views towards mainland Spain. The 462 runners, just a hand full of English but mainly Spanish set off at 7pm, even at that time it was still really hot, over 30 degrees C! The route takes you out on the (closed) main roadclimbing uphill towards Alcudia before heading down into the town along the shady back lanes. Then you head towards Marina Manresa round the very pretty bay along the seafront path, off road and up over the headland more uphill and finally downhill to Bonaire. I managed to overtake Miguel a runner and local celebrity – judging by the excitement of the spectators. I ran with Miguel earlier in the holiday – more about that later.
I finished in just over 46m, a lovely scenic run not technically difficult, but very challenging in the heat! Entry cost was just 11 euro’s, for that I got a plum coloured tech t-shirt, chip timing, with plenty to eat and drink afterwards! But no toilets not even one portaloo! Oh well a scramble down the rocks for the customary pre-race wee was unavoidable but the view was spectacular!
Miguel is one of the leaders of an organisation called Runny knows – the way in Mallorca. They organise guided running for tourists in the Pollencia Alucudia area. Organised by Johanna MacDonald a very friendly enthusiastic English runner resident on the island. Fortunately runs start early in the morning when it’s not so hot. I and a group of like-minded runners from all over the UK got together for a couple of very enjoyable runs, this year starting and finishing on the beach. An incentive being to get your clothes off at the end and into the sea! We even shared a bottle of sparkling wine on the beach; it really doesn’t get much better than that!
Mallorca has lots to offer the runner, the North East has some fantastic hills; most of the longer races on the island take place between October and April when the weather is a lot cooler. In fact it could make a good club weekend running trip. If anyone is interested I would be more than happy to organise something.”
Fell
Harrock Hill
Jim Jones, Jamie Dowdall (2nd claim member) and Paul Foster did the 4th Harrock Hill Fell Race on Wednesday night and finished 80th, 86th and 134th respectively in a field of 202 finishers. Full results below:
http://www.ukresults.net/2015/harrock4.html
Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc
Chris Baynham Hughes was at the ultra long stuff again on Sunday, this time running the UTMB which is an ultra mountain race in Chamonix (close to the French Swiss border) and is over 105 miles (yes 1-0-5, that’s not a typo!) Massive kudos to Chris for even attempting such an epic race distance in tough sweltering conditions. Over to CBH for his take on the race:
So UTMB turned into my second ever DNF. I loved it though, what a race! The course is amazing, although very groomed trails compared to the UK, that’s not such a bad thing for 105 miles. In the end though, I couldn’t control my body temp. My guess would be it was in the thirties even at 2500m and with no shade for almost the entire race it meant I got too hot, spent 45 mins trying to reduce it and must have looked bad judging by the degree of attention I was getting by the aid station team. I carried on and the heat increased further still (~35deg) stopped sweating, chundered, spent over an hour trying to reduce it and to up my blood sugar from “not critical, but borderline”. Flipped to shivering. Made the decision to continue, but then changed mind as I filled bottles and realised I had no interest in the food and wouldn’t going forward. It had taken 25 mins to decided to go on. Would have been 12 hour walk and a pyrrhic victory for me. I could easily have had a full night of sleep and started again the next morning, but that’s not why I was there.
Delayed Aftermath for me included a disturbed night of violent projectile vomiting and sleeping on the pavement of an airre like a tramp just outside of Dijon. Don’t regret any of it though, I loved every minute of the race, ran it as I wanted too, was blown away by the beauty of the trail and the pageant of ultrarunning. Amazing.
parkrun
Please find the results below for the Saturday parkruns. Well done to all who took part.
Delamere parkrun
59th David FEAKES 00:23:51
65th Geoff COLLINS 00:24:11
90th Lesley FEAKES 00:25:18
125th Tim PALMER 00:26:38
149th Jenny PALMER 00:29:00
284th Claire MORTON 00:41:34
283rd Paul BULMER 00:41:34
285th Louise MCEVELEY 00:41:35
286th Stephen WIGGINS 00:41:35
Widnes parkrun
45th Michael WILLIAMS 00:23:48
76th Rachael HOLDEN 00:27:11
Social
Finally our resident party planner Chris Fitzpatrick has asked me to remind everyone about the forthcoming knees up on Friday. The plan is to catch the 6.30pm or 7.30pm train to Chester for a 7-8pm meet in the Old Harkers Arms just off City Road. It promises to be a brilliant night! All are welcome to join in the shenanigans.
That’s all this week. Many thanks to those who sent in race reports this week and remember any future reports can be sent to helsby-race-reports@outlook.com – they help massively in compiling the round-up for the week and are very much appreciated.
Keep on running!
Cheers
Colin