Weekend Round Up 16th 17th October
SUSSEX CROSS COUNTRY LEAGUE 1 – GOODWOOD
A big thanks to all the club members who attended the first venue of the Sussex Cross Country league. Cross Country is very much a marmite thing, but this opening fixture attracted a good turnout across both our ladies and men’s teams.
First off were the ladies at 2:05pm. Niki Treacy continued her strong season being first Tuff lady home in just 21:05 across the challenging circa 5k course. Iris Bennett was next in 23:30 followed by Juliette Reader just behind in 24:00. Kate Cooper followed and with Janet Shepherd crossing the line, Tuff Fitty secured two scoring teams – great work.
The men’s race started half an hour later and took on a 5 mile route. There were a similar number of men to the ladies – each around 130 with some quick runners. For the Tuffs Mark Walford returned home in 32:29 – impressive for his second race of the day. Just 20 seconds later Simon Thistlethwaite charged home. Pete Littleboy, Phil Scales & Dave March ensured it was a procession of blue vests as they all finished within a minute of each other. Mike Barrett and Lee Bishop then finished close together. Adrian Oliver was next doing well despite being conscious of his hilly half the next morning. Steve Feest & Paul Martin followed with Paul another one clocking up his second race of the day. James Togneri and Les Pearce ensured we had three full male teams scoring. We also doff our cap to Jason Rae who had been up earlier marking his Great Bottom 5 run route in the morning, acting as race director and then riding around taking down the route markers. Despite all this he still rocked up in his mountain bike shorts and completed the course. Some great tales of determination across both squads.
Team Manager Adrian has submitted his thoughts:-
“Some view the end of summer as the end of events and the beginning of the “off season”. For the rest of us, end of summer means the beginning of proper Tuff racing – Cross Country season!
“The “seasoned” cross country Tuff team were joined by excited newbies – some never run cross country before, others not since recent school days. Lots of questions like, spikes or no spikes, hilly, how muddy, how far, race bling, transition technique and transition nudity policy, and most importantly, chairman’s chocolates?
“Cross Country season began with perfect weather – rain…everywhere else, but the sun shone on the cross country runners at Goodwood.
“Tuff Fitty fielded an impressive record breaking turnout of 17 intrepid athletes: 5 ladies, and 12 gentlemen. Karly Martin was down to race, but had developed blisters during Jason’s morning race (hard core!) but made up for it in her cheerleader capacity. Although raced individually, team results are the target – how many pure running clubs can our multi-sport club beat both in the individual race events, but more importantly throughout the 4 race season?
“The Tuff Fitty gazebo was quickly erected, the selection of Chairman’s Chocolates supplemented by the Cross Country “captain’s” treats were inspected, compared and earmarked for later “refuelling”, registration completed, race shoes selected, warmup done. Race time was soon approaching. Unlike previous years, the course remained in excellent condition – so much so that mud boots and 20mm spikes were replaced by trail or even road shoes!
“Finally, chocolates time!”
“Comments from our first timers was just how fast and furious the competitors were! A completely different level to what us triathletes are us to – excellent race practice for next years triathlon season! And they were all smiling at the end!”
“So who’s up for the next Cross Country Race on 13th November at Stanmer Park? Watch out for the Spond event!”
Adrian
As this goes to press the league positions have yet to be calculated.
Photos can be used individually if required – click on the photo below to start scrolling through the Tuff album.
BEACHY HEAD HALF MARATHON
Beachy Head Marathon is well established but the Half marathon is a new event on the weekend prior, now in its second year. Total respect to Adrian Oliver for tackling this tough half, particularly after participating in the Cross Country the day before. Adrian reports:-
“I had heard so much about the Beachy Head Marathon that I decided to sign up myself – I settled for the 2 Sisters Half, as I was not brave enough for the epic full 7 Sisters.
So once again, an early rise ready for the 8:30am start on a dry, mild and calm morning. Having been warned about the wall start, a quick inspection confirmed my race plan…wait for most of the ~500 starters to get through the start pinch point, then walk the first 5 minutes! Once past the initial wall, the hordes started to thin and I began negotiating getting around the slower runners – as well as the occasional path puddles. Bagged a trig-point for Geordie’s challenge…. At last the first checkpoint – finally some downhill through fields, country roads, the lovely village of Friston…all the way down to the coast…which meant…the Sisters! UP, down, UP, down, Birling Gap, round the back of Belle Tout Lighthouse. Time check…oh – there is a chance of sub 2 hours – no relaxing up the final mother of all hills before helter-skeltering back down the start wall and over the finish line. Great medal, tasty pasty!
Final time: 1:58:57 (winning time was an amazing 1:26:09) – 73rd out of 551, 13th male V50 – very delighted with that!
Definitely signing up to do that half next year (as well as the Chichester half – as long as I can have my race pacer again).
Will be thinking of all those signed up for the Beachy Head Full Marathon next Sunday doing ALL 7 Sisters!”
Adrian
OXFORD HALF MARATHON
Held for the tenth time, Oxford Half has been building its reputation and this year There were three recognisable faces amongst the crowds – Alice Gatland, Trevor & Clive Harvey.
Alice was in scintillating form dashing around the course, in just 1hr 31 minutes, second in her 5 year aged group and 31st female overall – very impressive across such a large field. Alice stated she was surprised with her time as she hadn’t run a Half Marathon for 7 years.
Next up Trevor reports in:-
“In a galaxy a long long time ago – well pre-Covid, myself & my Brov applied to be entered into a ballot for a place in the Oxford Half Marathon; we got through to the second round and finally granted an entry!
Then the usual story, revised date after revised date after revised date culminated in it finally being held on Sunday. 13,000 had apparently entered, but as seems commonplace this year, with the mass of rearranged events, there was a mega number of no shows – there were 7,207 finishers, and with several DNF’s indicates some 5,700 no shows”.
The pro’s & cons-
Good points
* A nice flat course
* As you’d expect from a large event, well organised, closed roads, good support with bands etc en route.
* A nice medal, T shirt & non alcoholic Bud, (what’s wrong with alcohol!”).
* Great weather – a few spots of rain prior to the start, but nothing really materialised – indeed quite warm for October.
The less good:-
* Sadly the route was primarily on outer roads of Oxford, so you only saw some of the ‘pretty bits’ (the dreaming spires of Oxford), in the final mile.
The bad:-
* OK there are never enough loos, but over some 45 year since my first half, I think these were the worst queues for loos I’ve seen before a start, a whole rugby field was rammed with double back queues – (just as well the other 5,700 didn’t turn up!), but a prudent stop at the M40 services on the way and getting there early prevented any ‘difficulties’!
* The cost – hefty at £49, (+£4.28 processing fee). Numbers were to be collected on the day, but Covid resulted in collection the day before, or post – (postage £3.95 + £1.81 processing fee). OK, (not the organiser’s fault), Oxford doesn’t like cars, so acceptable park and ride costs but the event website did add further processing costs!!
……… pricey, but hopefully not too negative a report as it was an enjoyable race with the accompanying atmosphere of a large event, and the bonus of a jolly with me brov, with Clive being FHH, (first Harvey home).
Trev
GREAT SOUTH RUN
Europes most popular 10 mile race returned this weekend and six club members were identified out on the course. First Tuff home in a very impressive 64 minutes was Richard Hobbs. Next home it is great to report on a returning Tuff – Steve Fryer who used to be a Tuff for many years, but joined again this weekend – clearly a great squad addition speeding around the Portsmouth course in 68 minutes. Graham Liddell ran to pace a friend around and he remarked how nice it was being able to look around and take in the sights rather than be head down seeking a time. Amanda De Ridder, Elaine Rousseau & Kate Evans took the total to six Tuffs crossing the finish line on Southsea common. Thanks to Hobbsie for reporting in:-
“It was nice to return to my home race, after a Covid break in 2020. The familiar 10 mile route remained unchanged and took in the historic Portsmouth dockyard and looping back into the familiar struggle of windswept Southsea seafront.
Nearly 16000 started and despite attempts at splitting waves even further it was pretty chaotic. However after a short period it all settled and seeing fellow Tuffs coupled with all the support and bands along the route kept the spirits high.
After a busy few weeks prior to the race, I was pleased with my time of 64mins 9s and 215th place”.
Hobbsie
GREAT BOTTOM 5
The Great Bottom 5 was the third race in Jason Rae’s Southern Multisports five mile series, the second starting from Whiteways Lodge. A strong quartet of Tuffs, Mark Walford, Graham Liddell and Paul and Karly Martin ran. Total respect to Mark, Paul & Karly as they then charged off home, got dry and headed to Goodwood in time for Karly to be chief cheerleader with Mark & Paul running for a second time that day. Graham would run again on Sunday highlighting how busy the race calendar is at the moment. All competitors received a great piece of bling produced by Paul’s company and entry included refreshments. Well done to Race Director Jason, and Clive Harvey was Mr Registration. Jason’s final race in the five mile series is the SDW Monarch’s 5 on the 13th November – entry details here
Mark has kindly set his thoughts down about the morning:-
“I won entry to one of Jason’s events at the tuffs raffle but it clashed with a run the next day so I asked if I could change entry to the great bottom 5. Not long after I did this Sussex XC league runs were announced, and it wasn’t even the same weekend it was the same day! Rather than do the sensible thing I thought what’s the worst that can happen if I do both. Due to lots of other events that weekend tuffs were in small numbers, but was nice to see Graham, Paul and Karly before we started. Graham asked if I wanted to join him on a warm up, I said I would pass not wanting to waste any energy, I said I would use the first 1km as a warm up”.
“Once the race started I soon found the course was downhill for the first 1km and my warm up was more of an all out run. Once that was done the hills started going up, lovely off course route through Whiteways woods. I found myself in a lead group of 5, 2 people running with their dogs started pulling away, this left 3 of us for about 2km then 1 started to pull away. So for the next 4km I ran with/against 1 other person. In the final 2 km it became a race, I would overtake him, he would overtake me. Knowing the sensible thing would be just finish and recover for Goodwood, I did the opposite and raced for meaningless position. The final 100m was a mix of uphill gravel path and flat grass, I put on a sprint finish head down and I got to the line first. I was really pleased then turned around to say well done on a good race but he was nowhere to be seen. My first worry was had he fallen, for a quick moment I wondered if he was actually a hallucination. Then I saw him at the top of the car park. I went over to see what happened, turns out he wasn’t racing! He was just running the course his friend was running and he was just following. So all that extra effort burned for no reason but I will think of it as sprint finish training. Went back to finish and was given a bottle of wine and buff for 2nd runner home, dog runners and runners were separate categories, but 4th in total I was pleased with. Home for bath and food before next race in 3hours time.”
Mark
TUFF FITTY’S ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
Traditionally Tuff Fitty’s Annual General Meeting is towards the end of October and so we hereby announce that Saturday 30th October is the date for this year’s AGM. Last year we had the best turnout ever by holding the meeting virtually on Zoom and therefore to try and attract another good number – and boost our green credentials to cut down on travel, the meeting is being held at 6:30pm on Saturday 30th October. Thank you to Ed Lay who has agreed to host the meeting again.
It is important to stress that Tuff Fitty is a club run by its members for its members and your committee and coaches would be grateful if members could dial in and hear a summary of the year. Following our constitution, the register is now open for any club member to submit any item for the agenda. Due to a restructure of the committee rather than secretary, please submit any agenda items direct to the chair at clive.harvey@tinyworld.co.uk Agenda items to be submitted by Thursday 28th October. Dialling in details can be found on the ‘event’ item for our AGM on Spond.
Whilst no one need to be afraid, and hide on mute, if anyone feels they would like to get involved and provide help in running our club, please do not hesitate to contact any of the committee to discuss what is entailed. This could be either through a committee role, or if anyone has any particular expertise and they wish to help with a specific item, we could form sub committees, so please do feel able to let us know. As usual all posts are open for re-election.
SUNDAY CYCLES
Thanks to both riders and coaches for the return of our Sunday cycles, this week the start was from Sea Lane cafe. This coming Weekend Sunday 24th is a Mountain Bike/Gravel bike ride starting from outside Steyning Leisure Centre for a ride up to Southwater along the Downslink – dont forget some money for a coffee (and cake?) stop 8am start.
PARKRUN
At Worthing parkrun in the rain! James Oram was first Tuff home in 21:59 on his 113th parkrun. Ed Lay was next, clearly recovered from his marathon last week, returning home in 22:47 Elaine Rousseau was next and well done to Les Pearce, who was on the organising team ahead of running at Goodwood.
At Lancing Green parkrun, Dave Priest was in action completing his 41st parkrun.
Littlehampton parkrun saw Kev Pearson cross the line as first Tuff home. Alistair Evans was next on his 56th parkrun & Bob Thomas on his 29th parkrun. Al Evans was also on the organising team.
