Hello everybody, the Plogger (Plodder blogger) is back from
holiday and can’t wait to update his avid readership on the club’s activities
so far in July!
1st July: Hope Fell Race – by Anna.
It was the hottest July day on record for the Plodders’ away
day at Hope Fell Race. We had already worked up a healthy sweat just
standing at the start line! Some had hoped that they would place well because
surely most runners would
have more sense than race on a 30°C+ evening. It wasn’t the case
though, with a great turnout of 219 runners.
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| Hope Fell Race 2015 |
After a lap of the sports pitch to spread out the field,
the race skirts through the houses in Hope, goes under the railway, then starts
the 650ft climb to the col near Wooler Knoll, north-west of Win Hill. The
heat dried mouths and added some uncertainty on how hard to push - it’d be easy
to trigger heat exhaustion - so the drop over the col into the shade of the
plantation was welcome!
The respite was short-lived though, and the route quickly
turns steeply uphill to Win Hill summit. A glance at the view, a few
breaths of recovery, then it’s straight down to Twitchill Farm and Hope beyond.
Congrats to first Plodder, Mike, in 25th place.
Kudos also to John for racing after his BG attempt at the weekend. And
well done to all 12 Plodders who were mad enough to run!
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| Plodders 'quanitfy their suffering' |
In a very uncharacteristic turn of events, the Plodder
contingent decided against the pub due to extreme sweat levels, but some pints
will be enjoyed in lieu next Wednesday. The cake and flapjacks went down
well instead.
It’s a great route - one to do again in hopefully cooler
temperatures!
Results
25 00:53:50 Michael
111 01:05:34 Shaun
128 01:07:23 John B
134 01:08:02 Andy P
139 01:09:07 James
157 01:11:55 Steve B
176 01:14:40 Maeve (27th lady)
193 01:19:14 Anna (32nd lady)
199 01:20:18 Susan (34th lady)
203 01:21:40 Rob E
204 01:21:41 Samantha C (38th lady)
206 01:23:04 Hannah (39th lady)
6th July: Hathersage
Fell Race
The Hathersage Fell Race
is a 4.5 mile race with 1050 feet of
climb. Beginning in the village, the
route climbs relentlessly past High Lees and Whim Plantation to Over Owler Tor
before peaking on Higger Tor and returning to the village.
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| Andrew's invisible parachute was unhelpful on the descents. |
75 00:40:03 Shau
92 00:41:27 Andrew
R
145 00:44:58 James
5th July: Great Hucklow – by Maeve
A brilliant
course and a very well-marshalled race. The first hill was a bit of a killer
but the marshal shouting plenty of encouragement from the top more than made up
for it. It was quite a muggy day but despite the warm weather the rain the previous
night had made the muddy bits quite muddy and the man in front of me
disappeared into mid-thigh deep mud at one point. I nearly lost a shoe several
times.
The course starts
quite high up and then you run even higher up the hill to where the glider planes
were taking off and hovering above us like birds. The views are lovely but I
needed to be careful to watch my feet as the ground was quite bumpy at times
and the route was a bit narrow in places. The route undulates a lot so it’s
hard to tell what’s coming up next which made it quite fun and interesting. You
get a bit of everything on the route – lovely grassy fields to start, up the
hill over boggy-ish moorland and then nipping around all the corners of a
valley, through little woods and over ditches and streams, then up the last
hill with the friendly photographer and back to the finish on a bit of downhill
meaning you can really go for it.
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| Open terrain and gliders over Gt Hucklow |
I can recommend
the apricot and ginger flapjack at the end and we were all very grateful to the
lovely elderly couple who were handing out water halfway round.
Results
19 00:55:06 Martyn
64 01:01:17 Andrew
R
100 01:07:39 Maeve (20th lady)
102 01:07:51 Steve
B
131 01:14:50 Anna (27th lady)
19th July: Holme
Moss
The Holme Moss Fell Race is a
15.8 mile race with 4215 feet of ascent.
It takes place on the open moors to the north of Woodhead Reservoir.
Results
At time of writing the results
were not available.
In Other News…
One Plodder in particular is having
an exceptional July: Liz made the Sheffield
Telegraph for her Habitat for Humanity project, building homes for orphans
in Malawi. I hope all Plodders will
remember to sponsor
Liz and send her a message of support!
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| The Plogger assumes this photo was not taken in Malawi. |
Finally…
Thanks to Anna and Maeve for
being guest writers. Remember Plodders:
if you want your achievements immortalised in digital prose, write me a race
report!
Tune in next week to hear about
the Plogger’s wardrobe malfunction during the Hathersage Hilly Triathlon. I’ll give you a clue: “drawstring”.
