Round Up 8th – 9th February 2025
It might be February, but Tuff antics continue with Susan Douglas up to her usual chilly swimming antics and Sue Pinky taking on the challenge of the Farnborough Half. Your editor, Kate Cooper, was also sliding around Stanmer Park to complete the last race in the Sussex Athletics 24 – 25 cross-country series!
Farnborough Half – Sunday 9th February
As you may have seen from Spond, Sue Pinky had to find a replacement support runner as the last minute. Thankfully, a kind soul stepped in and saved the day. Sue gives us the low down:
Farnborough Half has been a firm favourite of mine since it started back in 2017: love a nice cold run!
I signed up to use the race as a training run for London, but due to piriformis issues there hasn’t been much training. However, I wanted to see how my leg would hold up.
I had a frantic afternoon on the Saturday trying to find a new support runner, as mine had tested positive for Covid. Thankfully, someone stepped forward.
I was really nervous, as I’ve not been able to run over 5k lately, but I’ve been doing loads of long hikes so knew I’d get round: it was just a case of ‘when will my leg give up?’
I chose a strategy of 2 min run, 1 min walk with a pace of 12mm.
Naturally, I ran faster once warmed up and got a 10k PB!
11.5 miles in, my leg decided it had had enough, so we walked the rest and saved some for the finish line.
The course was long: my actual half time was 3:06, 10 mins faster than Royal Parks in October. It would have been a sub 3 if I hadn’t walked, but I know I did the right thing. I was rewarded with a beanie hat and a buff in the reusable goodie bag and a lovely bit of bling.
An amazing day! It was tarnished somewhat when I got back to my car to a parking ticket: we were running late so I didn’t ensure that the ticket was on the dash properly and it was in the footwell! Hopefully the fine can be overturned.
I thoroughly recommend this race, it’s a lovely, picturesque course for the most part!
Really Cold Swim Championships at Rother Valley County Park, near Sheffield.
Many thanks to Susan Douglas for writing in about this aptly named event (editor’s note: for someone who is not ‘as mad for cold water swimming’ as she used to be, Susan certainly seems to find quite a lot of it!):
In a weak moment, I was persuaded to take part in this swimming event, entering the 450m and 100m freestyle races.
I’m not as mad for cold water swimming as I used to be and especially at this time of year, when you just want the water to warm up and not have freezing hands and feet…but I do like a race. It’s different and somehow the cold doesn’t affect you so much.
Rother Valley County Park is quite impressive, and I imagine in the summer it’s very pretty. From the entrance it took about 10 minutes to reach the lake, where a 25m pool area had been created on its banks. The weather was grey and murky and water temperature 3.9c!
My first race was 450m, it seemed a bit mean to start with the longest distance first, but at least it gets it over and done with. Myself and 5 other swimmers entered the water, allowed a couple of seconds to regulate our breathing, and we were off. I started off breathing every stoke and then worked into my usual every three. I was evenly paced with the other swimmers, but as the swim progressed, I moved into the lead and won my heat. Overall, I was 2nd in my age group and 10th out of 21.
About an hour later, I had the 100m race with much the same story and winning my heat. This time 3rd in my age group and 9th out of 21.
But really, it’s just about the taking part, enjoying the atmosphere and seeing old friends.
I’m not sure I’ll do the event again as it’s a long old drive to do over a weekend, but I might have forgotten all about that by next year!
Stanmer Park Cross-Country – Sunday 9th February
The final race in the series of 4 was postponed from Saturday 8th February due to Brighton and Hove Albion’s FA Cup match and it did feel a bit strange to be hitting cross-country on a Sunday! It was a chilly, drizzly day and with my daughter in the U15 race at 1pm, I spent a lot of time in said drizzle before starting off and seriously questioned my stubbornness at wanting to complete all 4 races, especially with a long run in my legs from the previous day. However, all that was forgotten once I set off (thankfully, it had more or less stopped raining by then)!
It was a slightly different course from usual, due to logging work, with more time on grass and less in the woods. The going was treacherous in places, especially on the descent towards the finish, but I stayed in one piece and finished strongly, luckily with no one breathing down my neck.
This cross-country season has been a little light on Tuff participation (where was my captain’s chocolate?), so let’s hope next year sees more people taking part, as it is great – albeit rather brutal – fun!
Park Run Round Up
It was a busy Tuff Parkrun weekend, with nearly 20 Tuffs taking part, mainly across Sussex. As usual, Littlehampton saw the most Tuff participation with Steve Fryer, Wendy Frost, Emma Hinton, Adrian Oliver, Al Evans, Katie Yates-Hill, Debbie Birch, Chris Evans and Clive Doughty all running and Hope Newcomer on her usual volunteering duty. Congratulations to Wendy on a Littlehampton PB! Ed Lay, Marchy and Paul Fielder all ran at Worthing, while. Claire Luckham was at Bognor Parkrun. Clive Harvey took a trip to Burgess parkrun in London, while Trev Harvey was at his home Maidenhead Parkrun. Colin and Sue Simpson also ventured inland to take part in Wakehurst Parkrun. Well done everyone!
