We meet every Wednesday for a 6:30pm start at the Helsby Community Sports Club. We’re now on the winter program of a rotating set of mainly road runs. Getting started: give it a go. Come and say hello, make yourself known. Something like “Hello I’m new, I’d like to go for a run” should do the trick. More…
Shell four villages half marathon now full
Race now full – 17 January 2010 is the date. Race Packs out in due course. Half Marathon web pages.
Night run tonight – Thursday 3 December
Fancy a night run? 6:30pm at the club. Something like the summer offroad hill route. A whole lot more fun than you might imagine.
Bring a headtorch and a sense of humour. Friendly pace.
These are semir-rgular through the winter, first Thursday of the month. Bring a friend.
If you need a light the Alpkit over there on the left is a great starter and good enough to run with. Absolute bargain for 15 quid. You can of course spend a heck of a lot more.
http://www.alpkit.com/gamma …unfortunately out of stock just now, so you might like to treat yourself to a Hope 4-led, like Andy. Ahem!
Review: http://furiouscycling.blogspot.com/2008_02_01_archive.html
Other dates for your diary:
Thu 7th January, 6.30pm
Thu 4th February, 6.30pm
Thu 4th March, 7.00pm
Latest XC Results. Beacon and Sefton.
Firstly, a link to the results of the Beacon Park XC held by the Northwest XC League.
Just click on the venue link for full PDF results.
The Helsby blog has been updated with some photos of this race and race details. Photos courtesy of Dave Pinnington. Full link to all photos here
Just two runners for Beacon Park and no times provided. 114 runners in total.
17th Adair Broughton
51st Steve Riley
A classier and altogether more competitive field of over 400 runners confronted Ian Landucci and Adair Broughton at the UK Cross Country Nationals. It was a great day. Lots of mud and just as many smiles. I have a list of the complete results for all age categories if anyone wants me to send them a pdf file. Otherwise, as this race was also part of the Liverpool and District Series, a link to those results can be found here.
A trickier course with lots of heavy going in places and stated as 9.8km; quite a test but it stayed clear of rain and the two Helsby runners had some nice support from Paul Frodsham and David Alexander on the three lap route, as well as unknown faces cheering us along.
30th Adair Broughton 35.47 (189th in UK Nationals)
82nd Ian Landucci 40.10 (303rd in UK Nationals)
Please note that the next Cross Country Club Counter is the more relaxing Northwest Sunday League at Arrowe Park this coming Sunday at 11.30am. The incentive does not yet appear to be working, but free tea and biscuits and sandwiches to all participants after the race. Venue details here
Hope to see you soon and maybe at a race!
In the meantime enjoy the crisp, fresh winter air
Beacon Park XC 22/11/09
Sunday 22nd November at 11.00am Beacon Park. The sunday league races are fairly low key with a nice atmosphere and good support. This race was a two lap course totalling 4.4 miles.
Quite an undulating and interesting course so will make a great cross country if nobody has tried one yet. What’s a little mud and as much fresh air your lungs can handle?
Helsby results: Adair – 17/114, Steve 51/114.
Great race, let’s aim for a bigger turn out next time! Full results for the series.
Pics from the ever-reliable Dave Pinnington.
How to get faster
Runner’s World has quite a nice article summarising a few tips for getting faster. A lot of us would like to be faster, turns out there may be more to it than simply wishing for it!
“Don’t place all of the emphasis on an outcome such as ‘beating my marathon PB’. This is great for a final destination, but without an effective plan of action you’ll never reach it…”
Read the full article here. Let us know what works for you, using the Comments button…
Birkenhead Park Border League Results
Please find attached the results for the latest Border League. http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/lindleyjane/BorderLeagueResults/
Helsby Positions and placings as follows
27th BROUGHTON, Adair 32:34
61st LANDUCCI, Ian 34:15
125th SEARLE, Mike 37:09
129th RILEY, Steve 37:20
138th DAVIES, Ivan 37:43
144th SHAW, Geoff 37:54
173rd BOYD, Gareth 38:59
185th MADDERS, Dave 39:32
214th GRIFFITHS, Vanessa 41:01
230th HALLSWORTH, Mike 41:40
237th SHAW, Carol 42:16
253rd DOBSON, Liz 43:47
267th GRIEVE, Betty 45:21
285th WEBSTER, Robbie 47:43
292nd SHAW, Janet 49:15
Please note the next Border League is at Tattenhall on 3rd January.
Many thanks to all who turned up. Let’s hope it continues.
Adair
Border League 15th November
Quick note. The next Border League race to be held by Wallasey on 15th November at 11am is actually at Birkenhead Park http://www.wallaseyathleticclub.co.uk/
Further details should appear here in due course http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/lindleyjane/BorderLeagueResults/ Let’s hope we can field full teams :d
Clarke Gardens XC Results – Sunday LR2
Hi all – Well, a week ago and a day we had our first Sunday League Cross Country race at Clarke Gardens. Well done to Andy Smith for also running on the previous day at Arrowe Park. I think it was also Chris’s and Stephen’s first time @ xc….I wonder if those trainers will ever be white again?
I’ve been waiting for a link online but it appears that no official results have yet appeared. But the link should be a handy way of getting the results for all the sunday league races, plus a link to some photos taken on the day
http://pennylanestridersrunningclub.co.uk/XCHome.aspx
In the meantime here were positions for Helsby runners. Unfortunately, the results sent out do not have times.
13th Adair Broughton
74th Stephen McCue
95th Chris Newman
96th Andy Smith
and big congratulations to Jane finishing 4th lady!
4th Jane Ashbrook
Please note the next XC Sunday League race (free sandwiches and tea/coffee and biscuit afterwards btw) is at the interesting course in Beacon Park on Sunday 22nd November, 11am. More ladies and gents will really give us strong positions in the club table.
And if you can’t wait that long for a race remember the next Border League Road Race is Sunday 15th November at Wallasey …and even closer still I’ll be doing a Helsby Hill Headtorch run this Thursday 5th November meeting at the club at 6.30. Just bring a torch/headtorch, jelly babies, a sense of humour. All welcome as it will be a training run only, tracking mostly the route of the summer runs.
Monday night training meeting at the Club at 7.00pm for a shorter session of hill reps/speed work etc. And I think this Wednesday is the club curry night!!
What a difference a day makes
What a difference a day makes — Phil Gillard’s UK FRA Relays report
Saturday 18th October 2009 was a glorious day in the Western Lake District; as we drove from our hotel to the Ennerdale hills, they seemed to welcome us “come and play on us” was the very clear message and so we did.
A good recee was the order of the day; the gradual climbs (in parts) and grassy descents seemed an ideal location for the 2009 fell relays.
The following morning was very different; taking the same route to the tented village at the start of the event, the message from the hills was a menacing; “come and play on us if you dare”. It is funny how your basic senses can smell this kind of change.
The event consisted of 4 legs:
Leg 1: AS Solo – 5.8 m/1500’
Leg 2: AM Pairs – 6.7 m/2500’
Leg3: Orienteering Pairs– 5.6 m/1410’
Leg 4: AS Solo – 5.1 m/1600’
One hundred and forty nine team started the event, the Helsby team of Adair, Rachel, Georgina, Sally, Jackie and Phil finished in 120th position, a very creditable performance given the worsening weather conditions.
The clag came in during leg 2 and became gradually thicker during the event with leg 4 requiring the use of a compass even though it was a non navigation leg. These conditions do tend to reduce the advantage of the faster teams and mountain craft was more the order of the day; the three teams who finished first were all disqualified for missing out the first check point on leg 4.
This Youtube clips shows how it should be done; a fantastic descent from Tim Davies – even though he was one of the athletes who missed out on the first checkpoint
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHQuGrZizZc
This is my favourite running event of the year, a combination of; team spirit, friendly atmosphere, superb athletes and scary challenge give me real buzz – roll on Scotland in 2010.
Cross Country – Liverpool and District Race 1 (Arrowe Park)
This winter’s cross country season kicked off with the first race in the Liverpool and District series.
The race took place on a 6 mile, 3 lap course in Arrowe park, Wirral.
Despite heavy showers whilst driving to the event these had cleared before the start of the race and the sun broke through. This made for an excellent race on a fast course with very little mud. The race was won be Jon Mellor in 30:14 nearly 1 minute clear of the rest of the field. We were also treated to a fly past by a couple, of helicopters from the Air Craft Carrier HMS Illustrious which was docked in Liverpool. Almost as good as the Red Arrows at the Great North Run.
The results were:
76 Ian Landucci 40:06
126 Andy Smith 50:24
Full results can be found at www.lps-athletics.co.uk/l&d/
(Though I am not sure about the spelling of my name (one of the more interesting variations)
This was the first cross country I had done for about 10 years and I’d forgotten how much fun they are. No traffic to worry about and the varied terrain on the course saw a lot more position changes during the race than you would get on a normal road race. I will definitely be getting some more in this season.
Cheers Ian
Andy Todd @ Hellrunner
Andy Todd who is now an OAP (don’t worry, these are his words!) will be retiring from running with a number on.
His final race is the “Hellrunner” Delamere on Sunday 1st November at 11.00am
However, if he survives, by 3.00pm he will be in the Helter Skelter, Frodsham and invites you to join him for a drink.
I’d like to quote another Andy now because his words sum up genuinely what Andy has done for the club regarding fell running
“having largely instigated the habit within the club and pursuading the then club captain to incorporate fells into the club championships. Without his efforts, I doubt we’d be running the fells these days and I probably wouldn’t have joined the club (it was the fells and seeing the green vests on them which brought me to Helsby in the first place).”
So if anyone fancies a drink as way of thanks to Andy or just to rib him about his efforts at Hellrunner, it’ll be great to see you there.
