Subject:                                     V S Update - Monkey ballot; Events for everyone for next 2 weeks; Results from Bramley, Ripley and Roundhay; Reports from Wales and New Zealand

 

Sent: 09 November 2013 15:08

Brass Monkey ballot closes Sunday night

 

The ballot for the remaining 500 places (caused by duplications in the first applications) runs until 23:59 Sunday 10 November.

 

Read the explanations on http://www.yorkknavesmireharriers.co.uk/ or go straight to http://www.sportsystems.co.uk/ss/event/TheBrassMonkeyHalfMarathon12

 

Training on Tuesday 12 November

 

Beginners, improvers and juniors at Leos at 6pm.   Intermediates and experienced runners at Leeds Met track at 7pm.  Full details on the www.valleystriders.org.uk

 

Wedding day Roundhay Parkrun – Saturday 16 November – message from Sarah & Gary

 

We've decided to start our wedding day on November 16th with a Roundhay Parkrun. Gary, jealous of the attention paid to the bride, will be wearing a wedding dress and throwing a bouquet at the end. Sarah will be dressed as a groom (and taking it very easy to avoid falling on her face again...) We'd love it if as many Striders as possible could join us. If you've ever longed to be a bridesmaid, this is your chance! Bridesmaid dresses (especially on boys) welcome but not compulsory.

 

Abbey Dash – Sunday 17 November

 

The Abbey Dash is now full

 

But entries are still open for the Junior Dash, ages 8 to 15, see http://www.ageuk.org.uk/get-involved/events-and-challenges/leeds-abbey-dash/ for details

 

WYXC – Sunday 17 November

 

And then it’s a quick dash from the Dash to West Park playing fields for race 3 in the series. 

 

See www.westyorkshireathletics.org.uk for details.

 

Note that the men’s team is currently in equal first place in the overall team positions.

 

Food – Pie and Peas – Tuesday 19 November

 

Next VS Food will be 19 November and will be pie and peas, order meat or veggie version, whether you want mushy peas or baked beans, whether or not you want apple pie, and whether you want to eat at 7:15 or 8:30 to [email protected] before 10pm Sunday 17 November.

 

PS apologies, in last week’s email it mentioned lasagne, this is on the menu for 3 December.

 

Roundhay junior parkrun 2km – Sunday 24 November

 

see

http://www.parkrun.org.uk/roundhay-juniors/

and

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Roundhay-Juniors-parkrun/741247302568690?ref=br_tf

 

Peco XC race 1 – Sunday 24 November

 

There are already 60 adults and 11 juniors registered see www.valleystriders.org.uk/vsteams.htm .

 

To enter the first race, adults must register to [email protected] by 10pm Thursday 21 November.  I will have all the race numbers on the day – look for the Valley Striders flag.  Juniors no need to register with me, but good to know who’s going so also use the “teams” email

 

Race details at www.pecoxc.co.uk

·         Junior XC Challenge (8 – 10 year old boys & girls*): 10.00am, 1 mile approx.

·         Junior XC Challenge (11 – 16 year old boys & girls*): 10.20am, 2 miles approx.

·         Seniors (men * women 17 and over*): 11.00am, 4.6 miles approx.

·         Age groups for all 5 races in the season are based on age on 24/11/13

 

Not recommended for beginners as the distance for adults is quite long, but for improvers and above is a great introduction to off-road running and certainly very sociable towards the back of the field!

 

Results – West Yorks XC at Bramley

 

Girls Under-11

    20 Tally Diamond     6:58

    61 finished

Boys Under-11

    17 Joe Sherman       6:11 (Skyrac, 2nd claim VS)

    40 Sam Hollis        6:46

    61 finished

Boys Under-13

    35 Callum Chambers  15:52

    36 Max Vine         15:57

    52 finished

Girls Under-15

    17 Aileen Loftus    16:06

    38 finished

Boys Under-15

    16 Alex Pagdin      16:44 (Skyrac, 2nd claim VS)

    33 Callum Parton    18:13

    47 Alex Irvine      19:18

    56 finished

Ladies

    48 Sue Sunderland   23:35

    88 Maureen Coffey   34:32

Men

    29 Paul Fotherby    37:09

    38 Jerry Watson     37:55

    66 Rob Hamilton     39:29

    69 Jon Pownall      39:37

    70 Mick Loftus      39:38

    85 Dave Penman      40:38

   106 Roy Huggins      42:05

   107 Mike Furby       42:08

   110 Richard Irvine   42:34

   121 Adam Parton      44:17

   135 Andy Pagdin      46:52

   146 finished

 

Men’s positions after 2 races

   Spenborough       7 +  2 =  9

   Wetherby          2 +  7 =  9

   Valley Striders   1 +  8 =  9

   Skyrac            5 +  5 = 10

   Holmfirth         6 +  6 = 12

   Harrogate         4 +  9 = 13

   Halifax           9 +  4 = 13

   Denby Dale       12 + 10 = 22

   Ilkley           11 + 12 = 23

 

Results - Guy Fawkes 10

 

     4 Andy May        0:58:29 100

    11 Dan Fisher      1:00:57  99

    27 Rav Panesar     1:04:42  97

    42 Ian Sanderson   1:07:04  96

    53 Kevin McMullan  1:08:15  95

    55 James Tarran    1:08:23  93

    76 John Shanks     1:10:04  92

   114 Kevin Ainley    1:12:54  91

   156 Graham Pawley   1:16:26  89

   185 Alistair Smyth  1:17:33  88

   216 Sue Sunderland  1:19:06  87

   236 Ged Coll        1:20:22  85

   344 Iain Currie     1:25:07  84

   410 Chloe Hudson    1:28:30  83

   491 Sarah Harper    1:32:31  81

   672 Sara Dyer       1:43:14  80

 

Grand Prix table will be updated on the website later in the week.  Last 3 races are Abbey Dash (closed), WYXC race 3 (closed) and Peco XC race 1

 

Results – Roundhay parkrun

 

V S had the best 3 age-graded times at this morning’s Roundhay parkrun

    55 Malcolm Coles   23:24  78.42%

    11 Joe Sherman     20:20  77.62%

    17 Aileen Loftus   20:54  75.20% (2nd W)

 

V S Fell Championship update from Steve Webb

 

League updated again with results of Shepherds Skyline.  A significant change at the top of the leaderboard as new Fell Captain John Marsham has taken the lead from Ross Bibby.  Only two races now remain; the Wadsworth Half Trog (BM) and the Tour of Pendle (AL).  A number of men are poised on 4 scoring races and a superhuman effort from Messrs Loftus, Webb, Vallance and Stangnes could still see them snatch the trophy.  In the Ladies competition Kim is holding first place; Julia could still overtake her but would probably need to win the Ladies category at Pendle to do it.

 

OMM from Mick Loftus

 

OMM 2013 Mick Loftus and Mick Wrench

 

Brecon Beacons - Elite Course

 

Day 1 40.1km 3010m

Day 2  31.2km 1620m (although this was shortened)

These are straight line distances, actual distance depends on route but is likely to be 10 - 20% more.

 

This was our 8th OMM (formerly KIMM) Elite course attempt.  We had completed it 6 times now, we knew what we were in for.

 

One and a half hours in and we had already gone wrong and recovered, lost one of our maps, we were wet through and wind blown. Now we considered the leg to control 3.  It was on the opposite side of the map, 22km straight line distance away.  We realised that this was probably 15 miles on the ground, traversing a large part of the Brecon Beacons to find a red and white orienteering control marker 30cm square.  

 

The weather consisted of various combinations of heavy rain, thick mist and high wind.  We wore waterproofs all day. The underfoot conditions were a mixture of runnable grass, deep tussocks and bog.  

 

We broke up this long leg into manageable sections and worked our way through them.  Two thirds across we were relieved to find a river marked as “uncrossable after heavy rain” to be no more challenging than the half dozen we had crossed already.  We linked arms and waded swiftly across.  Over the river, our route took us nearly up to Fan Brycheiniog 802m, the highest point in the Black Mountain area of the Brecon Beacons, then 2km down the other side.  After 4 hours and 43 minutes we got there, we had been running for over 6 hours.  

 

Next we had to re-climb Fan Brycheiniog.  The wind on the summit was ferocious and it was blowing straight off the edge of the 150m cliff which made up the summit ridge. Unfortunately the next control was in a sheep fold at the bottom of the cliff with the only access down an extremely steep scree and boulder gully.  We were heartened to see other teams on the same descent, so we plunged down after them.

 

Predictably the route then required re-climbing the gully we had just slid down, now with the wind in our faces.  Once we had regained the ridge I began to feel that completing the course would be possible for us, I had harboured serious doubts up to now.  However, I was going through a ‘bad patch’, I had eaten all of my day’s food so I dug out my reserves and ate them.  We had been on the go for over 7 hours now and the light was fading early under low cloud.  We made slow progress to the next control but once there we knew we would make it.

 

Thankfully the last few controls presented themselves where expected and we made our way to the day’s finish.  The clock stopped at 9 hours and 19 minutes.  It turned out that we were 22nd out of the 45 teams who had started our course, only 28 teams completed the day.  

 

With darkness upon us we made our way to the campsite; it was a disappointment.  It consisted of a 45deg slope of mud with a thin covering of grass, streaming with water.  Our tent became partially flooded as soon as we put it up.  Rain hammered down so hard that a mist penetrated the tent outer.  We slept the night with sleeping bags inside survival bags, in a puddle.  Condensation inevitably saturated our down sleeping bags but this moisture was preferable to the muddy puddle below.

 

Thus fortified with our splendid repose we packed up for day 2.  It was announced that bad weather courses (slightly shorter) would be used. However, this was due to the supposed ‘mother of all storms’ due to hit the area in the afternoon rather than just the expected standard OMM weather we were to encounter.  

 

Day 2 went well for us, we navigated pretty accurately and gained some time on our near competitors.  The weather and terrain remained really difficult.  The wind forced us to a virtual crawl in exposed spots.  However, we knew we were on the way home and so ran positively. It was a huge relief to know that we would only be out for 5 to 6 hours rather than the expected 6 to 8, due to the shortened course.

 

After a long run in on forest tracks we got to the finish in 5 hours 2 minutes.  Our aims had been to stay safe, finish the course and hopefully do ‘ok’.  We had definitely managed the first two, so we left the dreadfully muddy race centre and car park straight away and headed home.

 

The morning after, back in Leeds we found our positions, 21st out of only 26 finishing teams (over 40% dropout rate) and 3rd vet team.

 

1   9:21:12   59  Nick Barrable     6:19:21 (2)  
                   Gustav Bergman    3:01:51 (1)

 

21  14:21:57   37  Mick Loftus   Vet 9:19:41 (22)
                   Mick Wrench       5:02:16 (19)


Alun Davies and Steve Dixon had their own epic weekend and came 40th in 12 hours 24 minutes out of 90 finishers in the C Class, 137 teams had started over a third of teams didn't make it.

 

National Frontrunner series - Queenstown, New Zealand

 

The end of a three week holiday out in the pacific saw Becky and I do a 5 and 10k in Queenstown New Zealand on our last day there, certainly the furthest away from home we have ever run or competed and definitely the wettest conditions we have ever run in! Set below the Remarkables mountain range and next to Lake Wakatipu the course was a nice hilly off road route around Jacks Point golf course, with the wind and torrential rain adding spice to the dramatic scenery. 

 

A few hours after the race we set off home on the long journey of about 36 hours in total. I would definitely recommend a 10k race if you can find one before long haul flights (as long as you can find a shower in the airport!), certainly helps you sleep better on the plane........

 

10k

6th     Ross Bibby   41.28

(56 finishers)

 

5k

61st   Becky Bibby   35.19

(78 finishers)