In plenty of time to get those entry forms in, here is a selection of local and not quite so local races for February. There are some really excellent events on, and I hope you'll all feel inspired to shake the dust off your shoes and enjoy some of them!
.
4th February 2007
Blackmore Vale Half marathon – this event is run “through beautiful undulating country lanes”. In my experience when the organisers use the word “undulating” they’re taking poetic license - what they actually mean is stonking great hills! This one starts at 11am at Bishops Caundle Playing Fields.
http://www.bvlions.co.uk/marathon2007.html
Blackmore Vale Half marathon – this event is run “through beautiful undulating country lanes”. In my experience when the organisers use the word “undulating” they’re taking poetic license - what they actually mean is stonking great hills! This one starts at 11am at Bishops Caundle Playing Fields.
http://www.bvlions.co.uk/marathon2007.html
Puma Longleat 10k – and this is what the organisers say “An undulating road run with one difficult hill tackled twice on this figure '8' course on the private estate of the Marques of Bath. Starting in front of the famous Longleat House and finishing running down the dramatic Lodge Drive. The course would be considered undulating for most of the route, except for one fairly long and difficult hill which is tackled in the first 2km and again at 7km - there is also a short but sharp rise just after 5km. Not a PB course, but an extremely picturesque landscape and spectacular start and finish.” Not a cheap one - £15 for a 10k and an early 10am start!
http://www.209events.com/event.php?event=25
11th February 2007
Tough Ten Challenge - Martin and I have both done this one in the past – don’t be fooled by the name, it’s really not as tough as it would have you believe. If you’re planning to do it don’t delay entering because it sells out early.
http://www.toughten.co.uk/
14th February 2007
Street 5k series Race 5 - What else would we be doing on the most romantic evening of the year but a bit a speed work up at Street? However, the age of romance isn’t dead…..our route home happens to pass by our favourite Italian restaurant. Well it would be rude not to stop wouldn’t it?!
Valentines Day 5km Road Race,
18th February 2007
This is a new race and possibly a one-off - Ilchester's very own Inca Trail. “Course consists of 7 Llama miles along the droveways and footpaths of King's Sedge Moor, taking in the points of interest of the original Inca Trail. Multi-Terrain, flat (apart from Macchu Picchu) and possibly very wet! Traffic and llama free.”
http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/events/viewevent.asp?sp=&v=2&EN=35108
Lytchett 10 – This is a one lap, 10 mile road race and once again it’s described as “undulating”. It starts at 10.30 in Lytchett Minster and if you can handle the undulations you get presented with a coaster for finishing!
http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/events/viewevent.asp?sp=&v=2&EN=34786
Four Trigs – this is definitely on our list of events for 2007! It’s “a low-key, off-road running event covering a distance of approximately 25km with an obscene amount of climb involved! Fell Runners’ Association Cat B. Aim: To visit each of the four Triangulation Pillars around the Sid Valley. Although runners will be able to choose their own routes, they must visit each Trig Point in order. Excessive road running will be frowned upon! Some knowledge of navigation or local knowledge of the area might help with route choice.” So this is one event we can happily get lost doing and no-one will even know (probably not even us!!!). We plan to run this together (or never see each other again!) as a long training run and we will be going down to do some recce runs beforehand, so if anyone is foolish enough to want to join us…………………
24th February 2007
Endurance Life Marathon and Half Marathon – Now you’re talking! This is the one I want to do if I can just convince Martin that it will be a great long training run for London. The winners of both events last year were well outside their respective PBs for the distance – so it really is a challenging off road event. It starts in the fishing village of Beesands in South Devon and follows the coast line out, looping back across country. Martin, did I mention it starts and finishes at a pub? I’ll drive home. (That should clinch our entries …….)
http://marathon.endurancelife.com/
25th February 2007
Babcary Road Race – the first race in the 2007 Somerset Series event will find Richard and Lesley hoping to make a good start to their challenge for places in the overall series. It’s a 7.5 mile road race with a nice uphill start (which doubles up as a much nicer downhill finish). It’s well known as a race which people run two loops of to make a long training run for London (yes, we’re amongst the loonies who have done this!). Equally well known for the staggering array and outstanding quality of the cakes awaiting you at the finish. You’d be surprised how fast you can run a second loop when you’re worried that all the chocolate cake will be gone before you get back!
Babcary Road Race
Dalwood 3 Hills Challenge – We haven’t done this one before, and it’s definitely on our “to do” list. The organisers say “Ten miles, largely off-road with only three hills ... but each one is 500' high!” If I can’t talk ‘im indoors into the coastal marathon then we’ll be at Dalwood instead (Hey we could do them both!!!)
http://www.axevalleyrunners.org.uk/races/index.htm
So there you have it, it’s going to be a busy month, but it’s going to be fun!
Posts
9 comments:
Oh My Obelisk 2007
First of all I must mention the weather. This was 14th January and it was warm and sunny! Warm enough for vest, shorts and sunglasses! So however the race went we were determined to enjoy the day out. It seems that good reviews of last year’s inaugural race had boosted this year’s field to over 300. The race narrows soon after the start so as a precautionary measure, to avoid some of the congestion, I decided to start on the front line! It seemed to work and I had a fairly trouble-free start. We were soon winding along narrow paths before things opened up a bit. We went out on Long Lane, an old drovers type of track, which I had been on before in the Dawlish Dawdle Marathon of 2002. The course covered fields, lanes and woods on the way to the Obelisk. The final climb to the Obelisk was on a good track. The descent was a bit more interesting, quite steep with hairpin bends through the woods. There was a steep downhill road section, then more fields before we retraced our steps along Long Lane and onto the finish. The general opinion was that this year’s race was much faster due to the favourable conditions. Apparently the mud last year was much more sticky and there was more standing water. We both liked this race, it was less demanding than the Drogo or the Monty, and had good views. There was more road than we expected however. After showering I returned to the finish and was somewhat surprised to find Lesley lurking around half naked! It appears she didn’t believe it would stay so warm, took the wrong vest, overheated, and had to run in her bra. Will this set a trend with Maiden Newton Ladies?
Plusses: The weather. Plenty of parking in the vicinity. Excellent changing/showers in the leisure centre. Lesley in her bra.
Minuses: No chocolate cake in the leisure centre canteen. Lack of presentation ceremony. Very basic results info. Lesley in her bra.
PS It shoud read "Richard said" !!!
Blimey! It's a bit like public transport. You wait three months for a comment and then two come along together!!
Thank you Richard & Lesley!!
P.S. Any chance of a photograph of the bra for the blog?
Oh my Obelisk sounds like a really good race, pity we had to miss it because we were doing a different hilly off-road 10 miler - in Wiltshire, the Rough & Tumble 10. Similarly warm and sunny weather.
Lin and I started near the front, but quickly found ourselves being overtaken by a number of women, and soon Lin was 6th woman in the race. She was expecting not much better than a top ten place, so did not seem too concerned. The first major hill was at 2 miles, and we overtook the 5th place lady on the way up, Lin running strongly all the way, including down the hills where she has up till now been running more slowly and carefully than most. This pattern continued as we gradually overtook all but the first woman for Lin to finish in an excellent 2nd place, and 62nd overall out of over 400 runners. This was despite falling into a mud hole on a steep descent at 9 miles. A very encouraging result, which bodes well for her continuing recovery.
The most memorable part of this race was one of the steepest hills I've ever raced up - about as steep as the last one in the Full Monty, but it went on for about 3 times as long.
After the race we stayed for the Cakes (very good, although the best ones had already gone - next time I must buy some before the race)and presentation. Here I must mention fellow YTRRC member, Paul Rose who was not only the first M40 vet, but was 2nd overall an outstanding result. He's come a long way since he was the last winner of the Greenford Gallop in 2002.
Next race is the Bimble, and we're going to race it separately this time. Last time we ran this was 3 years ago, and Lin got lost while running several minutes ahead of me and we finished that one together. This time will be different - I'd better take a map!
I haven't been able to find any results on line for Milborne 10. Dave, Phil? Did either of you run it and how did you get on?
On Sunday 28th Jan. Richard and myself set off on the 100 mile round trip for the Braunton 10 mile road race. Journey was traffic free and fast and the only incident of note being an unpleasant bump and squelch as we went over the fresh remains of a badger which the bald one insisted he couldn’t avoid. We arrived early and the bald one was soon sulking as I wouldn’t give him any money to buy some rather good looking chocolate cake; well we had brought our own as a precautionary measure after the Obelisk disappointment!
The race started on the athletics track, then on a gravel surface around a football field, through the car park and then on the road out of Braunton. We were soon undulating in country lanes with two hills of note before the 6 mile mark. Some good views over the Taw estuary then more undulating and some brisk downhills to the finish on the track. Not a bad race, good clear mile markers, very well marshalled and largely traffic free. Personal best for myself 86:13 (this was only my 2nd 10 miler excluding the Templer 10 which is only 9.7!) The bald one managed a reasonably smug 70:38, but was still moaning about his pre race cake. He did manage a smile when he learnt all the piping hot water in the showers had gone by the time I had finished. Weather was fairly typical for N Devon, mostly overcast, bits of drizzle, breezy and chilly. Went on to Woolacombe Sand for a bracing walk afterwards.
One notable feature was the excellent way the starter ambled over, we moved a few paces forward and the horn sounded. No lengthy health and safety speech about patches of mud or virus-carrying demented birds. Refreshing.
Martin and I paid a visit to Dartmoor this last weekend. Spent part of Saturday driving some of the Dartmoor Discovery route and marvelling at the steepness of the hills. Made a vague plan to spend a weekend there in April and cycle round the course in advance of the actual event (June). Found myself thinking, how can I possibly cycle 33 miles up all those hills? Then realised that as I am actually planning to run 33 miles up same hills, cycling them really shouldn’t be a problem!
Managed to get from Tavistock to Broadclyst for the Bimble without torturing any wild life or eating any chocolate cake (Martin more than made up for it afterwards you’ll no doubt all be surprised to hear).
We both really enjoyed the race. It starts through quiet country lanes and then does several loops around woodland with another small road section in between. Some of the paths were gloriously muddy and some of them were non existent – just a mad dash, winding through trees and undergrowth from one piece of tape to the next. Following the chaos which apparently ensued last year when a marshal directed runners onto one of the woodland loops in the wrong direction, South West Road Runners were taking no chances this year, and there were rather a lot of arrows and copious amounts of tape. I must confess at this point that, together with two other runners, I did make a slight detour towards the end of the race, but by loitering discretely we were able to slot back into the race at the appropriate place and it didn’t make any difference to the positions in the ladies event. I had been in 3rd place from about a mile out and that was where I finished.
Martin ran another blinder – knocking 7 minutes off his previous time here in 2004, finishing in 21st place overall and picking up yet another MV50 prize (2nd this time – for which he was rewarded with a jar of “Body Glide” which, apparently, reaches the places that Vaseline just can’t get to).
I’m certainly not sparing any sympathy for Lesley and the cold shower – our shower consisted of a child’s paddling pool, which had had 20 plus faster runners using it first! Can’t complain about the post race refreshments though (Martin stopped after 2 large slices of chocolate cake) nor the prize that I received – a large box of organic vegetables containing all manor of weird and wonderful produce, but sadly no cucumbers!
Anyone else race or run this weekend. Phil, you’re uncharacteristically quiet these days………?
Apologies for being so quiet (not that I would class my self as out spoke). Since the responsibility of running this huge organisation we like to call Maiden Newton Runners was bestowed upon me, or do I mean dumped on me!!!. I have spent my time trying to work out how I can ever live up to the reputation of those that have gone before me. But seriously I would like to thank Guy for his efforts over the last few years, in trying to turn a group of miss fits into a running club.
Glad to hear you're taking your new role so seriously Phil!! As, off course I am too. What is it that I'm supposed to do again?
Are we having a pre meeting run this month and if so any chance we could be a bit more inventive with the route? Four weeks into marathon training and Martin and I are seriously fed up with running up and down the valley from Sydling. Any ideas oh wise and busy Chairman?
Post a Comment