Giddy in Galway

Anglo-Celtic Plate & UK 100km championships 2009

If a butterfly flapping its wings in Guadeloupe can cause a hurricane, what happens when you take 50-odd ultrarunners and you make them run in tiny wee circles for 100 kilometres? That's got to build up a heck of a lot of vorticity. I'd take cover – there could be a bit of a storm on the way.

It's enough to have a significant effect on the earth's rotation. They had to knock the clocks back an hour on Sunday morning to compensate. Within the little circle marked out on the Galway seafront the fabric of space-time itself was warped. An hour to an observer outside became an eternity to us runners within; the 2km loop may have been measured to the millimetre beforehand, but I'm convinced that with every circuit the centrifugal force of the mass of humanity swarming round it stretched it longer and longer.

Galway – rolling hills and rocky coastline. You could have a fine trail ultra out there. Sadly, that's not what 100K races are about. A flat tarmac course is what is wanted, and if that means 50 laps of a 2K course, that's what you get. You have to run fast just to get it over with before you die of boredom. Jez had less time to get bored than the rest of us - he kept a remarkably constant pace to finish in a phenomenal 6.58, the first Brit to beat 7 hours for a number of years. Allen Smalls and Marcus Scotney also posted superb times: 7.16 for Allen, with Marcus - running his first 100K - just a minute behind. I was pretty happy with my 7.43, which got me 4^th in the UK championship (8^th overall in the main race - the German national squad having turned up for a bit of a sparring match and taking some of the top spots).

Give me a trail race any day though – a wide open space, a rocky path, a hill, a forest, an ever-changing view. I think most of the top runners at Galway would agree – the line-up for the forthcoming Highland Fling has most of the same names. It's gonna be good.

[posted by Andy]

Wuthering Hike

The High Peak Marathon was always going to be a hard act for us to follow. Team Vasque North (featuring Mark Hartell!) had a hard fought race with the High Peak Rollerbladers to win the 42 mile High Peak Marathon while Team Vasque South pushed hard to finish third.

The Wuthering Hike is held the weekend after the 42 mile High Peak Marathon, so it's not too unsurprising that we didn't feel quite as fresh as we might have done. Given the rigours of the week, I was well pleased to finish in 6th place with my Three Peaks Yacht Race partner, Martin Indge: and we won the team prize! Mark Hartell did well to sneak in in just under 5 hours after last weekend's great performance.

So what of the race? The dominant feature seemed to be the wind. We were running into a headwind for the first 10 miles or so. This felt like hard work, especially when you know that these 10 miles are usually the fast miles. A good tactic seemed to be to try to slipstream either your team mate (for us team runners) and / or another runner. We did this along the side of the Widdop Reservoir (slipstreaming another runner) and when we decided to make a break for it, we pushed really hard for a few minutes. When I felt we had put enough effort in and should have opened a gap, I looked behind to find the other runner slipstreaming me! It was hard to break away from other runners in these conditions.

It was a race of two halves. The first half we felt pretty fresh and were running into the headwind. The second half was more tiring, but we had a good tailwind behind us. I guess this was the right way round, especially given that the latter half of the course has a couple of vicious little hills on it.

The event centre after the race was a nice place to relax and chat with the friends that we've made during the series and to meet new ones. For me it was nice to be stretching outside in the sun and to watch Mark come in after me. This doesn't usually happen, but I hope I've set the tone for the rest of the series there! I managed to make a complete mess of clearing up the series sponsors' banners after the race. It might have looked like I was just trying to avoid being asked again, but I think I just wasn't quite with it after the race.

Next stop Calderdale Hike, but there are a few good training sessions to be had before then. The first one for me is this weekend in the Lake District. I'm really looking forward to being in the mountains!

[posted by Martin Beale]

High Peak Marathon

Well done to Team Vasque North for their successful defence of the High Peak Marathon trophy. Their winning time of 8h48m was pretty impressive!

The HPM seems to be the traditional start to the ultra-running season. 42 boggy miles at night over some of the roughest terrain in Northern England: the peat bogs of the Derwent Watershed.

I was running in Team Vasque South, finishing in third place in around 9h31m. As we went through the checkpoints, we kept asking the marshals how close to the leaders we were and were quite often told that the two lead teams were neck and neck (and we were 20 minutes behind: hmm!). There was clearly some nerve wracking racing at the front. Team Vasque North pulled away from the second placed team (High Peak Rollerbladers) over the Kinder plateau and held it together to eventually win by an 18 minute margin.

The conditions overnight were somewhat trying. The main problem was that the tops were in the clouds, so the navigators had to navigate the featureless bogs with 20m visibility in the dark. This was not an easy feat. Tom Brunt and Tim Laney did most of the navigation for Team Vasque South while Martin Humphries and Martin Beale just got on with the running, switching to navigate-mode only when the path was lost and the team had to fan out to get back on track.

Team Vasque North looked like a collection of well honed athletes relaxing back at the event centre post race. They didn't look like they'd been out for a 42 mile run. I'm expecting great things from these runners this season!

Some of Team Vasque South looked a little more tired at the finish. We were happy with third place after having two teams get quite close to us at Bleaklow Stones. We must have had a good run from Bleaklow to Kinder as we finished comfortably in third place.

Team Vasque North were Mark Hartell, Stephen Watts, Steve Pyke and Matt Giles.

Team Vasque South were Tom Brunt, Tim Laney, Martin Humphries and Martin Beale. 

The Bridge on the River Wye

Wye Ultra had everything. Sunny weather; chip timing (surely a runfurther first!?), a handy pub near the finish to quench one's thirst while watching the last runners struggle in.

Unfortunately, the one thing it didn't have was a means of crossing the Wye. The bridge was down. Or, rather, the bridge was up, but there was a big health-and-safety notice slapped on it.

I'm sure some runfurther types wouldn't blink an eyelid at forging the raging torrent - all part of the experience - but the organisers weren't so keen on the idea. The route was redrawn, to become two laps of an out-and-back course. Sadly, no pleasant meandering through the Forest of Dean; instead, about half the distance was on road, with much of the remainder on a winding single track path running along the edge of the river to the turn-around point.

It made for entertaining running as we turned at the furthest point and came charging back at full pelt into the stream of runners arriving. On a path rarely wide enough for two abreast, it was a slight wonder that no-one was knocked into the river.

It proved to be an exciting start to the series, with a fast pace set from the gun and some very close racing at the front end. It was Allen Smalls who powered through to first at the finish despite lying in fourth place at the last turnaround point. Matthew Ray and Andy McNeill were biting at his heels though, only seconds behind, and another 4 or 5 runners were in within 5 minutes. Plenty of points, and all to run for in the rest of the races!

Who's in Team Vasque

2009 Team Vasque - sponsored by Vasque Shoes, Thorlo Socks, ClifBar and Capestorm Clothing.

• Mark Haretll - 2008 mens Ultra-running Champion and Bob Grahem 24 hour record holder
  
• Martin Beale - Green Man record holder and 3rd in the 2008 Ultra-running Champs
• Tim Laney - 2nd in the LAMM 2007 and 2nd Brit in the 2006 UTMB
• Andy Rankin - 2nd in the 2008 Ultra-running Champs
• Mandy Calvert - UTMB 3 times in 2005, 2006 and 2007. Best result was 2007 as 3rd Vet and 10th female plus Petit Trotte a leon 2008 first mixed team
• Rachael Lawrance - LAMM A class winner with Mandy, Marathon PB london 3:09
  
• Lucy Colquhoun - West Highland Way female record holder (2007) 17:16, CCC 2007: 2nd female, 2008 1st Female, Highland Fling female record holder and winner 2007, 2008 (8:10:03), Lairig Ghru female record holder (3:32:38), Marathon PB is 2:51 at London in 2006
• Stephen Pyke - TBA - Everest Base camp to Kathmandu joint record holder with Lizzy Hawker in 3 days 4hours and 36 minutes
• Stephen Watts - Petit Trotte a leon 2008 first mixed team

Each Team member will be posting their thoughts, training, race reports and anything else thay can think of here!!