The exploits of Simon Morris and Tom Evans at the super tough Wendover Woods 50 mile Centurion event rightly take the headlines this week, whilst cross-country with its usual dose of mud and hills looked the most fun.
But lets first look at Parkrun Round up
With XC taking place the same afternoon, not surprisingly we had just 30 Gade Valley parkrunners lining up at 9am this Saturday morning, with the majority choosing to go to either Gadebridge or Rickmansworth. Interestingly opposite ends of the parkrun difficulty score.
Out at Rickmansworth, Nick Crowther was our fastest male finisher in 18:32, agonising close to his PB. Sue Crowther was our fastest lady home finishing in 25:14, closely followed by Birthday girl Helen Cook in 25:21.
Over at Gadebridge Russell Jones improved on his 13th place at Ricky last week to come in 4th in 21:00 – more astonishing when you look at his XC performance later) . Kirstie Hardman was our first lady home in 27m 13s, with Rachel Haffenden following close behind.
Mary McClusky and James Birnie travelled the furthest this weekend, running the Old Showfield Parkrun near Bath.
Interestingly the BBC report that a new Parkrun record of 13minutes 44sec was set by a Nick Griggs at Belfast parkrun. A superhuman time!! Although a few of our runners have commented that they “would like to see what he could do Gadebridge on a wet Saturday morning!!!!!”
New parkrun record
Moving on to Cross-country Round 2 –
I am travelling out to Dubai with work this week, partly to chat about the genetic and environmental traits that might combine to make some camels run faster than others. Whilst I wouldn’t want to comment on the genetic components of our running team, I would hazard a guess that the pride of pulling on a GVH vest , facing a muddy XC course and full squad of cheering team mates goes along way to encourage top performances from our harriers this weekend.
Our roving reporters Angeline Cottrill and Jack Boughton take up the commentary…
“Cross-country fixture number two was at Teardrop Lakes; the one with a walk from the car park to the start line almost as long as the route itself. Conditions were somewhat perfect, with cool air, no rain, and just a gesture of mud but not enough to honour the GVH crew with mud-warrior status. Conditions in the tent, however, were far more gloomy. Several women were preparing themselves for the task ahead in an almost pitch black tent with a feeble glow hanging above from a wildly ineffective camping lamp. No sooner had they profusely muttered about it, Roland promised to be on the case, in charge of obtaining a suitable illumination for future fixtures. Watch this space!
One Gloomy tent!
Our 17 women outnumbered the men yet again and the total squad included 3 debutantes; Andrea Beattie from last year’s learn to run group and Louise Nash from this year’s group and Darren Burke. The course is largely flat on grassland, with a couple of short but very steep hills.
Our Fabulous Womens team
Storming home first in a very impressive 24:24 was Heather Timmis (20th position overall!) followed by Teresa Reason in 25:57. Newcomer to GVH and participating in her 2nd XC for GVH, Eleanor Bennewith fought off a Leighton Buzzarder, nabbing a finish time of 26.45. Recent returner, Megan McCreadie, romped home next in 27:26, followed 4 seconds later by our newly appointed Chair, Victoria Crawley-Wise. Claire McDonnell was our final point scorer crossing the line in 28:48. The rest of our warriors followed strongly in the order of Kim Morgan, Sandra Flynn, Amanda Barker, Ines Trent, Kitty Cole, Jade Evans, Chrissy Mooney, Clare Bowers, Angeline Cottrill, Andrea Beattie, Louise Nash. Well done all!
Refuel was found in the form of Jack Boughton’s scrumptious flapjack which was very well received, especially in the void of absentee Birnie’s legendary tiffin.
Jack also brings us an update on the performance of our mens’ team
Despite the weather being uncharacteristically good for XC, the ground was fairly soft under foot which resulted in the start straight turning into a complete mud bath by the time the men went through for the final time.
Andy Wells was our 1st male to home with Jon Roberts only 2 places behind. Michael was next across with Russell taking the 4th GCH place – he surely can only just have recovered from 4th place at Gadebridge parkrun this morning? Well done Russ! Martin, Stephen, Roland and Gwyn all battled hard to finish within 3 minutes of each other. Bill and Ed were our 9th and 10th finishers, earning the final point scores for GVH. Darren Burke running his maiden XC , Jono, Phil and Ellie all finished strongly taking vital points off other clubs.
Overall a great effort by all of our runners. Congratulations to the Ladies Vet team that finished 3rd overall.
Team results for XC round 2
Centurion Wendover Woods 50
All though sometimes we may overuse the phrase, Warriors! There can be no doubt that Simon Morris and Tom Evans earned that status (and more) on Saturday afternoon, taking on a 50 mile trail event in Wendover woods with 3000m(10,000ft) of total elevation. Huge kudos guys – that’s one ridiculously tough course and great to hear both came home under there 12 hour goal!
Speaking to Jade afterwards – she reports. They did have such a great run! It’s a really tough course, 5 times around the 10mile loop with some crazy hiils! They spent nearly all day within a couple of minutes of each other, but Tom was finding the down hills hard on the last lap. Simon finished in 11:34:04 and Tom was just a little behind him 11:48:28. Both said they’d never do it again and for them the hardest lap was lap 4, 30-40 miles. The end wasn’t quite in sight and it had got dark and cold.
She also said – It feels a long time just supporting 🤣 I cannot comprehend running 50 miles!
Our centurion warriors
Dorney lakes 10k
Unless the results fairy has failed me, our only runner racing on the roads this weekend was Adrian Stobie, tackling 10k at Dornie lakes. Well done Adrian, crossing the line in under an hour with a 6th cat position finish ( 59:22) it’s great to see you racing again.
And finally with 16 week until the start of the spring marathon season Sundays strava was full of reports of Long Slow Runs. Sam Sparks, Robert Bowler, Daniel Green, Kim Morgan, Andrew Bishop , Jack Boughton and Stephen Newing are just a selection of those posting LSR as training for the long distances in the spring begins!