Tuesday 26 February 2013

Home Advantage! Lightwater Cross Country Race:- Results, video, photos...

The Thames Valley Cross Country League came to our turf on Sunday 24th February, with Bracknell Forest Runners hosting their race in Lightwater Country Park.

We had a great turnout of 30 runners, split equally between men and ladies, and with five debutants in the ladies' team.

See all Bob Fudge's excellent photos on the link below, and find out who grew a beard for luck!





https://www.dropbox.com/sh/2qy1mo5la9q2vis/btiJ7KdD4W

Our amazing Ladies' Team won again, which makes their third victory of the season. There is no separate ladies' league table, but our ladies would have been league champions if there were.

Our men had their best ever race, finishing fifth with their best points total of the season.

Overall, this was also our best points total and we finished in fourth place (hmm, or maybe fifth, provisional results are still changing daily!).

See the League's website for the full results: http://www.tvxc.org.uk/league-results. (Note: at time of writing, Lisa's result (221st place) is missing but we have notified them so that should be corrected soon. As proof, here's a photo of her finishing!)

You can see the video from this race, and all the earlier ones, on our YouTube channel
http://www.youtube.com/WindleValleyRunners
----------------------------------------------------

Our final position in the league was fourth. A super performance, well done and big thank yous to everyone who has turned out for us - we have had 49 members run in all.

Here is our Cross Country Roll of Honour:
Men
Nick Askem, Giles Blackham, Simon Calderbank, Dario Cambiano, Martin Cox, Mark Coxhead, Miles Cudmore, Christopher Drew, Nathan Green, Steven Handley, Peter Hansen, Mike Hewison, Keith Hull, Peter Jones, Robert  Littlejohn, Ross Maclagan, Peter  Mannion, Chris McAneny, Iain McDermott-Paine, Gus McEachen, Dave Pearce, Phil Ribbins, Tony Sheridan, Gordon Trout, Robin Wakefield, Geoff Williams, Mark Wye
Ladies
Pam Berriman, Wendy Davies, Sachiko Dixon, Sabine El-Bacha, Kayleigh Epton, Abby Fudge, Paula Fudge, Dee Green, Laura Hales, Debby Hewison, Lorayne Hockin, Anna Holland, Ann Keefe, Jenny Livesey, Zira Longley, Yvonne Lubbock, Lisa Norman, Ellie O'Neill, Jo Obertell, Katie Pearce, Jo Smith, Pip Webster-Smith

Deserving of a special mention are our three "hundred percenters", who turned out for all seven races: Zira Longley, Peter Hansen and Captain Dee!
Next race is at Eton, provisionally set for November 10th.........

Sunday 24 February 2013

Caption Competition

From today's cross-country, the photo by Bob Fudge shows Mark Coxhead and three Sandhurst Joggers.

Click on the Comment link below to write a caption for the photo, and don't forget to tell us who you are.


Monday 18 February 2013

Lakes, Mud, Twitchers, a Centenary, and Wellingtons

A group of eleven of us gathered at Wildmoor Heath, Crowthorne for our Sunday run, and though sunny weather was promised for later it was still misty and cold at 9.30 - cold enough for some of the group to be wearing three layers at the start!

We were heading for Moor Green Lakes and Finchampstead Ridges, a route that saw us starting off through the woods to the south of Wellington College's grounds. Descending the slope we had the first of what would be many swampy bits to negotiate. Then it was into Ambarrow, across a particularly boggy field, and finally into the lakes area, where the going was much better on the footpaths. Here our footpath followed the Blackwater River for a couple of miles along the Surrey/Berkshire border, and as well as passing other runners, we noticed there were a lot of people hanging around carrying big cameras, binoculars and telescopes, mostly dressed in camouflage colours and staring intently out across the river.

This is the actual bird, photographed at Moor Green Lakes
Curiosity got the better of me, so I stopped to ask what they were looking for. Apparently, a Pallas's Warbler has been spotted there over the last month. There has never been one recorded in Berkshire before - normally they migrate between Siberia in the summer and southern Asia in the winter. Let's hope they saw it - we didn't, though we did get a good close-up view of a large grey heron at one point.

Then, as the sun broke through, it was away from the lakes and up through the National Trust land at Finchampstead Ridges. As we got to the top after a steep climb we learned from a monument there that the land had been purchased for the NT by public subscription exactly 100 years ago in 1913, as had the neighbouring Simon's Wood where we were headed next. By this point, some layers of clothing were starting to be shed as the exertion and the sun warmed people up. We headed along Wellingtonia Avenue, where the redwood trees were planted in 1869 as a memorial to the Duke of Wellington who lived nearby. Then it was into Simon's Wood and a run along the edge of the very pretty Heath Pond, with the sun shining through the trees.

I thought at this time that we had finished with the mud, but no - in fact our route out of the woods along Heath Ride was the boggiest bit of the whole run, with unavoidable long stretches of trainer-deep goo for about half a mile! Then it was off for a run through the majestic grounds of Wellington College (also a monument to the Duke, opened in 1859), and back to our starting point, just under 9 miles covered.

All in all a very enjoyable run with lots to see.

Right, that's my trainers cleaned up - hope the bath water's still hot for me............
Steve

Sunday 10 February 2013

Well done to all our Wokingham Half Marathon Runners (Photos added)

There was a big turnout this morning for the Wokingham Half, and some excellent times achieved, including, we think, several PB's - we'll update this item as we confirm that, and as we get hold of race pictures.

Here are the times that we know of, updated Monday evening with some confirmed achievements, including 7 new PB's!

Click above for larger version

Laura and Nick smiling their way round
(Thanks Nick for being first to use the new Photo Upload on the website)

A very wet start! (Photo (C) Nick J Webb on Flickr)

Monday 4 February 2013

Thank you Simon Edwards

The recent Awards Dinner had a special feature this year - a video from Simon Edwards, who moved to Arizona last year but has been missing the club ever since.

Simon made a video to show us how he is getting on, which you can view here:


And as a tribute to how much he enjoyed his time at the club, Simon also made a special donation to the club, with the request that it be used to pay the membership fees of four of our members for 2013. 

These were selected by random draw at the dinner, and the four lucky members were:
- Catherine Thorin
- Chris Dent
- Lisa Norman
- Simon Cutmore
We miss you too, Simon!