Month: October 2015

11 Oct 2015 – Eaton Stampede

The fifth running of this event held in the scenic village of Eaton , sadly having set in the stone the date of this year’s race only to have other major local races along the way want to use the same date, Grrrrrr!However Chief promoter Tony Allen with a subtle mix of good marketing and implied threats managed to get a great turnout on a perfect morning weather-wise for the race. Naturally on `home soil` Stilton Striders were out in force but also shirts from Stamford Striders and Barrow Runners were part of this year’s start line.

The winner led from the off, a young lad who won the event two years ago could even afford to go wrong in his victory, he was positively flying!

It was up to the rest of us, the downhill start to the race is good however that none of us took our warm up serious enough as quite a few puffing and panting over the first churned up field. Last time I did the event it was a two lap affair and I have to say the single lap format made it much better for me, congratulations to the course developer as it had something of everything-certainly trails, hills and splashes of mud, rope climb, woods, fast descents, stiles, ladder climb and a splattering of road.

Much of the first 5K I sat in 5th place before getting up to 2nd place between 5 and 8.5k only to lose it in the last 1.5K and coming 4th, however was very pleased overall with my performance. Had a great racing tussle throughout with the guy who finished 2nd and fellow Striders Mike Bryan and a very strong Michael Atton.

Real credit to the organisers and the village of Eaton, lots of friendly marshals and helpers, the cakes were indeed way up to standard afterwards, any chance of opening the Pub in Eaton next year if just for the day?

I may sound like a stuck record on this but `support your local races`! These local events are often put on by a small amount of people and when they are gone they are gone and you`ll just be left with big bucks entry corporate events, get out and support them! Thanks to Tony and his team, excellent day! [Rob]

Selected results:

  • 1-Katie Hateley 48.00
  • 8-Celina Silver 62.59
  • 14-Steph Barlow 69.34
  • 3-Michael Atton 43.00
  • 4-Rob Beers 43.13
  • 5-Mike Bryan 43.26
  • 8-Luke Eggleston 46.17
  • 9-Dan Valencia 46.23
  • 11-Simon Bottrill 47.50
  • 12-Michael Cooke 47.58
  • 13-John Houghton 49.35
  • 17-Nicholas Smith 56.52
  • 28-Tam Nicol 69.35

11 Oct 2015 – Stilton Stumble

Annoyingly scheduled for the same day as the Eaton Stampede, the Stilton Stumble is a fantastic local road race based around Cropwell Bishop. This year’s schedule clash clearly impacted on numbers as only 217 people took on the 10k (including 5 Striders), and 67 challenged themselves over the longer 24k distance. After some questioning over the course length following last year’s event, the courses had been officially re-measured and lengthened slightly.

After winning the 10k event last year, Jason Barton was looking to retain his crown, and quite definitely did all that he could to do so, taking almost a minute off his winning time from last year to finish in 35.29. Sadly, with any event like this, it is all dependent on who turns up on the day, and although this pace put him 2 whole minutes ahead of third place, it was not enough to seal the victory as the course record was smashed by a runner from Shelton who got round in 34.45.

Next Strider back was 12th placed Darren Glover who ran a superb race to finish in 40.37. Ben Pickard was on the cusp of a PB with 45.16, followed by Sarah Proctor (52.45). Laura Pickard took a massive 3 minutes from her PB to finish under the hour mark for the first time in 58.32.

Shane Sharkey was the only Strider to take on the 24k course and got around in 1.53.02 – 20th place.  [Shane]

4 Oct 2015 – Cardiff Half Marathon

Clive and Jenny Kent travelled to Cardiff for the weekend, staying with Jenny’s sister. Sunday morning dawned overcast but dry, and we headed into town along with 22,000 other people. After finding the bag drop next to the castle, we headed to our respective starting pens. Jenny managed to meet up with her book group friend Aimee somehow!

Clive started behind the elite people and went off quickly with sub-7 minute miles, then remembered to rein it in. It was a bit of a slog for a few miles and then the big-race atmosphere started to help. Unfortunately, his IT band was an issue but he kept the pace quite high. Running back into the centre, the crowds started to become raucous, which pulled him through to the end, where he finished strongly in 1.35.30, taking 8 mins off his PB.

Jenny and Aimee had a steady start alongside Mickey Mouse and the Wacky racers. After 3 miles she picked up the pace and had a good run around Cardiff bay (overtaking Alfie, Gareth Thomas, and taking the chance to say hello!) and up into town, dancing to live music and cheering crowds spurring her on. It very flat with only a couple of speedy downhill sections. It got harder to keep the pace up after about 10 miles, but the cheering squad made a well-timed arrival with flags! She managed a sprint down the finishing straight in 2.21.11, taking 13 minutes off her PB. 

A well-organised race and our results were texted to us 30 mins after the finish, which together with the lovely roast dinner and cuddles with Alice made the long drive home well worth it.  [Jenny]

   
 

11 Oct – Coalville 10k

Stuart Gregory was the only Stilton Strider to enter the Coalville 10km which takes place in the grounds of Snibston Country Park. The two lap course involves short sharp hills, gravel and tarmac paths, muddy footpaths and a small meadow just for good measure. As there were a number of other races on nearby numbers were surprisingly slightly up this year as Stuart set off with 106 other runners hoping to triumph. At the half way point Stuart was already over a minute and half down on his time from last year and this continued on the second lap as he crossed the finish line in 58th place 16 places down on the previous year with a time of 1hr 01m 12s some 2 minutes 56 seconds down on the previous year.  [Stuart]

4 Sep 15 – Great Longstone fell race

A sublime 4.8 mile off road course that climbs a total of 950 feet onto Longstone Edge in the Peak District taking place annually on the 1st Friday of September. The runs start and finishes from the recreation ground in the middle of the village.
95 fell runners were sent on their way by resident local political celebrity Lord Roy Hattersley in this extremely friendly, relaxed and beautiful run, plenty of climb but not to technical and not so steep as it’s all runnable!  First Strider home in an incredible 35.29 Michael ‘Chris’ Atton in 26th position overall, next up Simon ‘thekitanator’ Bottrill 33rd place in 36.47, floating through the finish in 35th Dan ‘milko’ Valencia in 37.01 followed by John Houghton in 39th in a new course PB time of 38.08 last in Steve ‘superman’ Boylan coming back from injury in 76th position in a time of 44.19. [John]

   
 

4 Oct 2015 – Great Dalby Dollop

Sunday 4th October saw the first ever “Great Dalby Dollop”, a tough (no doubt down to Jim Hatherley) 5k cross country course. It was a well organised event with plenty of marshals and a lovely friendly atmosphere enjoyed by an impressive debut turnout of over 120 runners and walkers. First across the line was…

1. Mike Bryan 23.27
2. Mick Atton 23.57
5. Simon Bottrill 25.30
6. Martin Riley 26.18
12. Matt Chalmers 28.12
31. Laura Pickard 35.47
32. Ben Pickard 35.48
34. Steph Barlow 36.39
35. Tam Nicol 36.39

So all in all a great turn out for the Striders with 9 runners and 4 of them getting into the top 10… wahoo!!

Well done to Jim Hatherley and family for a great event. [Mike]

4 Oct 2015 – Curbar Commotion

At 9.5 miles long with some 1300ft of ascent, the Curbar commotion is the first of this year’s `longer` fell races of the Gritstone accelerate series. An impressive five Stilton Striders (Myself, John and Lou Houghton, Steve Dewick and Dan Valencia) were on hand for the days proceedings, we beat all the other Leicester clubs in total (One Huncote, One Roadhogg and One Barrow!). The morning is cool-ish but the sun is going to blare out when it comes out properly, a large turnout has come out for this race along the edges, first time this new course has been run in the race`s two year history.

Team Stilton makes a gentle run out as the race starts, a nice hill early on thins the field out a bit, I join Barrow Runners Haydyn Williams accompanying a rookie Fell Running friend on the ascent, obviously having far too much fun as the banter and comments are flying !

I kick on when I reach the top and am really enjoying myself (it does happen), really seem to be moving very well along Baslow and White edge. Some rather protective Angus cattle along the rear of Longshaw and finally Haydn has caught up with me although I keep him near throughout the rest of the race, only person who passed me during the entire race.

Into Baslow woods where I’m stuck behind some bloke with appalling body odour! Couple of hills that we didn’t expect come out of nowhere and then a really fun descent through tress, ferns and finally fields to the finish. No way was I going to catch serial mountain man Haydn on descents but a minute behind I’m overjoyed at, very happy with my performance crossing the line in 1:13 .

Surprisingly Dan who seemed to be taking it steady early on follows in a 1:15 battling a female runner over the line superb performance, followed by John Houghton, Lou Houghton and Steve Dewick.

£6.00 entry and a massive cake free-for all at the finish, great day in the peaks, happy days!  [Rob Beers]

3 Oct 2015 – Heart of England Marathon

The 1st Heart of England Marathon (its 26.9) and 15 miler (actually 16.5) at the very quaint village of Henley in Arden between Solihull and Stratford upon Avon.

Today was just about a little outrun which I was thankful for having gone for a 7-8 mile outrun with John and Dan the night previously. Starting from Henley school which is similar to rocking upto Charnwood Marathon in its laid back approach and lay out and even has Breakfast and tea/coffee Free of charge pre-race included! Joined today on the start line by two very good friends the lovely Zoe Sewter of Hermitage harriers and Andrea Winkless of Barrow Runners already, I`m in my happy zone when the race kicks off at 9:30a.m.Terrain wise, ok its Mercia we are absolutely blessed aren’t we with such good places to run?

This isn’t 16 miles of slog its 16 very nice miles of footpaths, bridleways, forest tracks, the odd bit of road, and perhaps two muddy bits throughout the whole course, a few rises the odd hill and some very nice villages. The check points just got better, the first one a bit meagre with jaffa cakes/choc chip cookies, the second the same although they`d make you bacon butties/veg sausage cob and the third one was a virtual cake shop! If you thought that was good then upon finishing free drinks again, plus lasagne and a pudding all inclusive! One of those fine races where you can actually put weight on.

Small gripe would be although the arrow markers are plentiful they are kind of small and we amongst many other went wrong, we actually did 18 miles! I`m sure feedback from the 1st ever event will see it grow and improve next year. Certainly would like to try the full distance next year the course was a great mix of everything, if you fancy a no pressure offroad jaunt this comes highly recommended. [Rob]

#RunEveryDay

Melton Sports and Ron Hill have teamed up to offer prizes to runners in Melton taking part in #RunEveryDay – details at the link http://www.meltonsports.co.uk/2015/09/18/take-up-the-run-every-day-challenge/