Hello all
Welcome to this weeks round-up, before we get started please find some details on a few events/talks coming up soon:
Wed 17th Feb Dave’s Talk on Swimming the Channel
Wed 9th/16th or 23rd March TBC – Tims Talk on Orienteering
W/E 5/6th March Helsby Beer Festival
Sunday 20th March 2pm Sport Relief Mile, 3 or 6 there is a weblink for entries
http://my.sportrelief.com/search/event/result?id=5808&location=WA7
A cracking course for all the family, around the grounds of the Helsby Community Sports Club. Enter you and your family now!
We will need support on the day to put this event on, more later.
Friday 29th April Presentation Evening
Wed 11th May AGM
Wed 29th June – The Wobbler
Friday 8th July Summer Handicap
Plus another local race for your diary
Sunday 3rd July Frodsham Downhill Race
Northerns XC Championship (Witton Park)
Now on to the news. A big well done to the hardy and brave souls who tackled the brutal conditions at the the Northerns XC on Saturday afternoon. The course looked horrendous from the various photographs floating around Facebook. Ian Rutherford has sent in a fabulous report and even managed to keep his spikes on this time 🙂 over to Ian…
“Six Helsby vests made it up the M6 to Witton Park nr. Blackburn on this cold, breezy but initially bright afternoon – comprising 2 ladies and 4 men.
As is the way of things, there were eight previous races of various lengths on the course prior to the senior woman and men’s events ensuring classic XC underfoot conditions were available for our enjoyment when the times arrived.
First job upon arrival was to pitch the tent and hoist the flag (easy tiger) and by way of advice for future events, just remember to take one vital bits of kit for this task– it’s called a Tim Palmer. His magic performed we all huddled inside as the weather closed in, the sunshine disappeared and the hailstones began to fall.
Having semi-seriously contemplated ‘throwing a sickie’ it was soon time for Jane and Laura to prepare for the off in the 7.7Km 3-lap Woman’s race. But there was a problem. We appeared to now be ‘locked-in’ the tent much to Jane’s amusement; thankfully (I think) between Laura and Tim they managed to open the tent and we all headed out.
Both men and woman’s races had seriously large fields (358 finishers in the Woman’s and 719 in the men) the runners were spread on one of the longest start lines I’ve ever seen. As expected, for a Northern Champs event it was a high-class field and some remarkable XC running was on show.
Jane and Laura ran strong races, the weather deteriorating all the time – both kept smiling as they went around once more for another lap – sadly it was time for us blokes to head back and get ready.
Jane & Laura returned euphoric after their race – beaming smiles all round with key advice “if you see any grass run on it, but doubt you will”. Er…thanks….
The men’s course was over 12Km and consisted of 4 full laps of the course. Again more wintery conditions were evident and it is with huge credit to Jane & Laura for staying on to support, they must have been frozen after their race.
Great performances all round with good competition between the Helsby vests; Tim showing all of his trail and fell experience on the muddy climbs looking incredibly strong I thought.
Senior women’s result
30:21 Claire Duck – Leeds City Athletic Club 1st
38:33 Jane Ashbrook 100th
40:33 Laura Baynham-Hughes 142nd
Senior men’s result
43:16 Charlie Hulson – Sale Harriers 1st
65:42 Ian Rutherford 469th
67:02 Tim Palmer 494th
67:09 Gareth Boyd 498th
70:51 Steve Riley 573rd
I can’t end this report without mentioning two further points: firstly, yet again the remarkable support and dedication shown by Joe and Mario to travel all that way and spectate in such wintery conditions. They really shouted us on and we all know how much this really lifts us – so a BIG thank you once again. Secondly and of vital importance at least to me: I managed to keep my shoes on
Thanks all. Ian.
Marmot Dark Mountains
CBH and Max were running up and down mountains in the dark again, big Kudos to the lads for another fantastic display of running and thanks to CBH for sending in this excellent race report…
“For the second year running I teamed up with Max for Marmot Dark Mountains, an event that looks to squeeze two days of a traditional mountain marathon into a single, long, dark, night… in winter. It’s easily one of my favourite events of the year, navigation, night running, crazy weather, mountains and frankly it’s one of the principle justifications for my kit obsession!
What an incredible night out. We were dead lucky with the weather, only a few moments of horizontal sleet/ hail, which thankfully for our faces turned to snow for the final half of the race. However the snow made it very tricky as the light blizzard simply reflected the light from our torches.
The course itself was majestic. Really runnable, tricky enough in the dark to really challenge navigationally (or maybe that was just us Max?) it was just fantastic fun, on more than one descent I was whooping like a loony. Too little precision in our nav and being out of tip top form put us into 4th overall.
Those that have read my accounts of these sorts of events before will know of Shane Ohly’s unbeatable race organisation and his fantastic team. Everybody is amazingly friendly and incredibly helpful; they are all mountain enthusiasts and just get it. This makes a huge difference and I cannot recommend Shane’s events highly enough. This year Shane’s added tracking to all his navigation events so those of you that like a bit of dot watching can really get into and follow the race. Mountain marathon’s are particularly interesting… dare I say exciting in this regard as one can watch the tactics and the race unfold. Ian Rutherford seemed to be enjoying it live at least: https://twitter.com/rutherian/status/693584550908317697
So another dark mountains under our belts, highly recommended to those with the experience required who want to push themselves out of their comfort zone. If it wasn’t for the fantastic Marmot 24 I’d say it’s my favourite MM…. but I simply can’t decide between the two.
Full results here http://www.marmot-dark-mountains.com/results/2016-results/
parkrun
Loads of green vests out for the parkruns on Saturday and couple of new PBs too! Well done to everyone. Great to see Ian Hamling back in action after a recent injury too. Please find Helsby results below:
Warrington parkrun
63 Michael WILLIAMS 00:23:40
122 Ryan CASH 00:26:10
128 Rhea THOMAS 00:26:23
Delamere parkrun
21 Gareth BOYD 00:21:15
34 Davyd MICHELL 00:22:38 (New PB!)
86 Suzanne FLETCHER 00:25:07
92 Geoff COLLINS 00:25:18
125 Derek GALLAGHER 00:26:10
214 Hannah SADAOUI 00:30:18
Widnes parkrun
2 Colin BISHOP 00:18:02
16 Joanne LACKING 00:20:47
22 Ian HAMLING 00:21:44
24 Carl PRATT 00:21:52
26 David FEAKES 00:22:18
55 Rachael HOLDEN 00:24:10
69 Chris HATTON 00:25:01
96 Lesley FEAKES 00:26:34
107 Jen O’HARE 00:26:58 (New PB!)
134 Jenny PALMER 00:28:42
Birkenhead parkrun
14 Gary O’CONNOR 00:19:42
That’s all this week. If I have missed any races or results please let me know. Don’t forget that all reports and results should be sent to helsby-race-reports@outlook.com
Keep on running….
Cheers
Colin