Weekend Round Up 2nd 3rd February
How did your New Year resolutions hold up in January? Well, if you were a Tuff there were plenty of like-minded people to entice you out into the snow, cold, dark or wet local terrain. Numbers have been extremely strong for each of our swimming, cycling and run training sessions. Need that impetus to get out? come and join us. In addition there was still plenty of race action to report on:-
RYDE 10 MILE
Trevor Harvey reports in from a trip across the water:-
“Three Tuffs embarked on an overseas trip, manfully and womanfully crossing the Solent to take part in the Ryde Harriers 10 mile race.
Clive & Nicole Patterson-Lett and Trevor Harvey arrived by ferry and hovercraft on a freezing cold morning. Luckily the wind abated and so by the start the sun was out with clear blue skies for good, but still cold, running conditions. A slightly amended route from prior years avoided some main roads, and took in some great views and coastal roads, but the changes didn’t lessen the hills; the new route still resulted in a total ascent of 227 metres (745 feet)!
The Tuff trio ran together for the first few miles before Clive changed up a gear and sprinted off to be the first Tuff home.
Well organised and marshalled, and so a recommended race, resulting in a jolly day trip”.
Trev
CHICHESTER 10K
There were almost 1,500 runners at Chichester 10k taking in a route around the country lanes before a lap of the motor racing circuit to finish. Conditions were sunny but cold, and there were some strong Tuff results. Henry Teague-Smith is certainly back on form as he reported in that he shaved over a minute off his best time from 2013 with a new PB of 34:15. Malcolm Brown crossed the line in 42:27 Chris Sloggett 43:36, Juliette Reader well placed in her age group continuing a good run of form, and good work from James Togneri building up to his long distance IM in the summer
EFFINGHAM ADVENTURE
Snow on the ground, and a mixture of frozen tracks and slushy mud was the setting in Surrey for either Mountain Bike/Trail run competitions or Trail running. Paul Atkinson entered the 2 hour Trail run which entailed
navigating to as many checkpoints as possible within the time limit. Run fitness and navigation skills together with time management were required as any time over resulted in time penalties. Completing in 1 hour 56 minutes Geordie Paul scored the fifth highest number of points but finished overall in 8th place as a couple were just a little quicker. A sizeable field so a great result.
OUT RUN CANCER -ARUNDEL
Next up an inpsirational report from Jon Babbage at the Out Run Cancer 4 mile race.
“Wow what a chilly morning that was; my wife and I got up nice and early for this one, had breakfast and got into Arundel for 7:45.
My wife had never run until New Years eve last year so 5 / 6 weeks ago. Then January she ran up to 5k every other day,
We wanted to run this one as we lost our best friend to cancer 5 years ago. and knowing a bit about cancer united we thought we would make the effort even though we could of quite easily stayed in bed.
We parked the car in Arundel and started walking up to registration when my wife spotted a robin just sitting on the post and she’s always been a believer that robins are Deceased loved ones so that was it straight away we’re thinking of our friend Nick on a cancer united run on world cancer day/weekend who passed away from cancer Anyway we managed to hold it together.
The time was getting closer to 8.30 and we were absolutely freezing by this time we all gathered in the road down Mill Rd Arundel.
We had a very quick briefing of the course and a thank you and that was it the count down started. I hit my strava app on my watch and off we go.
About half a mile in and there’s me and 4 others all sort of leading the way, I had a young lad right next to me who was so heavy footed I could hear his steps over my music so I thought to myself I’m gonna to just push it a little and see if I can take the lead which I did. We headed to the Black Rabbit and I was still leading then just kept running looking out for the Marshalls. We headed to South Stoke, there was a couple of hills but nothing to bad.
We arrived at South Stoke where they had put on a water station so all we had to do was run back so I turned around and headed back. At this point I couldn’t see anyone in sight, about 45 sec had passed then I could see the guy in 2nd place this made me more determined to run for it because I’m sure he was going to give it some on the way back. A couple of minutes in I then I started to see more and more people everyone was waving and saying well done so I was thanking everyone. After a few minutes of thanking everyone I was completely out of breath and struggling to breath as I was constantly speaking. I then passed my wife and I came over quite emotional seeing her really giving it a go; I was very proud seeing as she only ran once last year.
Just as I started to get my breath back a song called sacrifice by creed came through my head phones that was it for me I was a mess I couldn’t help it I was in tears as this is a song Nick had played at his funeral. I even have the lyrics tattooed on my wrist. Luckily the song was over before anyone could see me I could now see the finish line I crossed the line in 1st place. A medal was given, then I went back to the finish line to wait for my wife I didn’t have to wait to long she crossed the line in position 55 out of 128.
We were so so happy it meant so much to us this run and one we won’t forget”
Jon
PARK RUN
At Worthing Park run were the following. James Oram who has now notched up 93 Park runs, Amanda de Ridder; Chris Sloggett, Ed Lay; Dave Priest, Gary Edge & Elaine Rousseau. Across at Bognor Park Run, Becky Lintott-Clarke ran again with her daughter.
Gary reported in his usual self deprecating style stating, “Slowly getting back running again starting 4 weeks ago”. “Carthorse slow times but picked up over 2 mins since last week so it’s going the right way” Well done to all for getting out in those chilly conditions.
