Club Champs Update No 16 - Monday 30th September

 

Two Breweries

Congratulations to Oli Jepsen, Simon Hammond, Danny Lavin, Colin Williams, Thomas Jones, Craig Walling, Alex Bain, Dorien Kimenai & Mike Goddard who all managed to make it over the hills and complete the Two Breweries race on Saturday. Some impressive times all round on what is the toughest course in the Champs this year. Shout out to Mike Goddard who was the oldest finisher and first MV75, so some hard earned podium points there.

Beyond that, there has been a steady flow of Park Run activity as we approach the closing stages of this year's Champs.

Overall Standings

No change at the top of the leader board with Carol in the lead, Gillian in second and Coreen in third. It's close behind that with 10 folk now over the Champs Medal Threshold and a similar number within a race or two of passing that mark before the end of the champs.

Full Champs Spreadsheet

Next Up

The next race is The Great Scottish Half in Glasgow on Sunday, followed by the final Age Graded TT on Tuesday 15th Oct and then the choice of Lillesleaf 10k or Devil's Foot Half/10k on Sunday 20th. 

As always, errors, omissions, Park Runs and anything else to declare => MoorfootRunnersSecretary@gmail.com

Martin

Club Champs Update No 15 - Sunday 22nd September

 

The 22nd event in this year's Champs took place today with 5k, 10k and Half Marathon options on offer at The Wild Deer Trail event in Dalkeith.

In the half, Moorfoot Junior James Moore finished an impressive second and first male in a very quick 1:31:46. Super impressive on any course but given all the twists, turns, ups & downs that is a mighty fast time.

For the seniors Ian Munro had a great run picking up podium points for 3rd place in MV60, closely followed by Tim Warner with his canine companion. Jen Misak also started but wasn't feeling 100% so opted out of lap 2.

In the 10k there was a very strong Moorfoot performance with 4 Moorfoot finishers in what we believe were the top 8. The official results look a little wonky to some of us, and we think a tail end finisher in the 5k is currently showing as the ladies winner in the 10k!😖 The results have been appealed and I think after the "stewards enquiry" the results will show that Dean Carr finished 3rd (1st in MV50), Carol Moss was 4th (certainly 1st in FV60 and actually the First Lady minus the interloper), Martin Holt 7th and Gillian Carr 8th (1st in FV50). Coreen McGovern was 1st in FV50 and Scott Gourlay rounded up the Moorfoot team "just topping his points up"!😉

UPDATE: The results were amended as expected so Carol was indeed the winning lady and placings as above.

Aside from today's efforts, Carol Moss and Ian Munro were in action last weekend at the Sedfield Serpentine 10k with Carol winning FV60. Also David Carter-Brown had a great run at the Glencoe Marathon winning MV40.

There have been the usual selection of Park Runs etc - too numerous to mention.

So with seven events left to go in this year's Champs the standings are as follows:

Carol has a 50 point lead over Gillian in second and Coreen has overtaken Jen to move into third. David Carter-Brown has moved up significantly and is in Two Breweries action next weekend so there is still all to play for. Meanwhile the spreadsheet elves are off to work out how many Championship medals to order?😃

Full details in the link:

Club Champs Spreadsheet

Next up it's The Two Breweries then the Great Scottish Half.

As always, if there any errors, omissions, Park Runs or anything else to declare then => MoorfootRunnersSecretary@gmail.com

Martin

Club Champs Update No 14 - Friday 13th September

 

Well done to all those who braved a chilly Tuesday evening down at Tweedbank Track. Another amazing run from Carol Moss saw her post an age grading time of 93.00% and take maximum podium points. David Carter-Brown was fastest on the night and came second in the age grading, and the podium was completed by Neil Jackson in 3rd place for seniors (although great credit to his son David who was third in the age rankings but not eligible for Club Champs points). The other runners were Cameron Munro, Sarah Burthe, Dorien Kimenai, Andrew Fish, Sam Layton, Mark Newell and Scott Gourlay. Mark became the 54th person to register points in the Club Champs this year.

Thanks are due once again to Mike Goddard for organising and Kerry Law and Pete Caddick for timing and lap counting. 

Tuesday's points mean that in the overall standings Carol Moss now has 260 points and a lead of 45 points over Gillian Carr in second with Jen Misak in 3rd on 185.

Club Champs Spreadsheet

There are 8 events still to go in this year's Champs with bonus points still available for additional runs of 10k, Half-marathon, marathon & ultras for those who've not bagged these. Also don't forget there are "Team Player" points for anyone who joins a club relay team.

Next up are the Wild Deer Events in Dalkeith Country Park on Sunday 22nd with 5k, 10k and Half Marathons all available. It looks like they are still taking entries.

As always, if there are any errors, ommissions or you have park runs or any other events to declare then => MoorfootRunnersSecretary@gmail.com

Martin

Club Champs Update No 13 - Tuesday 20th August

[Notice the subliminal product placement for those yet to put their kit order in 😉] 

So limited action to report in the Champs this week and much of it already covered by Dean.

Carol Moss was first lady at the Abbotsford Trail race continuing her fantastic form to pick up another 15 bonus points and take her lead out to 25 points.

Coreen McGovern had a great run at the Scottish Half, also collecting 15 points for her efforts.

Ewan Gibson completed the challenging Borrowdale Half, to collect his extra 15 points.

Alex Bain (nee Campbell) is this week's highest climber though completing the Half Marathon Karusellen (near Bergen) and picking up bonus points for being 3rd lady, to boost her total by 20 points and close in on the magic 125 Club Champs Medal.

Latest standings are:

Club Champs Spreadsheet

Next up is the track time trial on 10th Sept (tbc whether it is 3k or 5k) then the Wild Deer Events on 22nd Sept and Two Breweries on 28th Sept.

As always, errors, omissions, Park Runs or any other results to declare => MoorfootRunnersSecretary@gmail.com

Martin

Club Champs Update No 12 - Sunday 11th August

 

Cademuir Rollercoaster

First up a big shout out to Gregor Nicholson for another fine effort organising the Cademuir Rollercoaster. It all went very smoothly (it's almost like he's done it before 😉) with a big thanks to all those who helped with registration, marshalling, timekeeping and the like. A very fine club effort - thanks folks!

In the junior 3k race there was a great club showing with an encouraging number of our juniors in action. 

With the 6k also doubling as a national selection race for the juniors, we had many of the country's top juniors in action, consequently only one senior made the top 12 finishers (Lauderdale's Marc Wilkinson). The top 3 were the same as last year but in a different order with our own Thomas Hilton in 3rd. The standard was very high with all 3 inside last year's winning time. James Moore was the second Moorfoot home comfortably inside the half-hour mark. This high standard made for an entertaining few minutes at the "Cademuir Crossroads" with the lead runners coming down ahead of the later runners heading up creating some mind-focussing marshalling moments (a career in air traffic control is not for me!)

For the seniors, Andy Cox was 4th Male Vet, a minute ahead of Scott Lindsay 5th Snr Male & Craig Walling 5th Male Vet. Jen Misak had a great run, finishing 2nd Female Vet, having also done registration earlier. Fee Hodgkiss was definitely the happiest looking runner on the hill today and Scott Gourlay's prize for sticking with it, is passing the 125 point threshold to become the 6th to claim a Club Champs Medal. Well done all - it was a warm day for it.

Elsewhere

At the Oxton Fair Race, Carol Muir was first lady home with Cameron Munro making it a family affair finishing second male. Well done both of you!

We've also had the usual plethora of Park Run activity - well done on these folks both running and volunteering.

Standings

The win at Oxton Fair has taken Carol clear at the top, with Gillian second and Jen having closed the gap after a high-scoring Cademuir of registration, running and getting podium points. Coreen has scored highly for Park Runs and volunteering and is up to 4th. Andrew Fish is in 5th and Scott Gourlay 6th. Full details in the spreadsheet link.

Club Champs Spreadsheet  

Next up in the Champs is the Scottish Half & 10k next Sunday -18th August.

As always, any errors, omissions, Park Runs and the rest => MoorfootRunnerSecretary@gmail.com

Club Champs Update No 11 - Sunday 4th August

 

It's neck and neck at the top of the leader board following this week's 10km Age Graded TT plus a selection of Park Run activity. Carol Moss and Gillian Carr are joint leaders level on 185 points, with Jen Misak in 3rd on 160 points.

Congratulations to Andrew Fish and Coreen McGovern who were the latest to pass the magic 125 point Club Champs Medal threshold and lie joint 4th.

Club Champs Spreadsheet

There are 10 races left in this year's champs including 5 half marathons and the Two Breweries. Next up is Cademuir Rollercoaster on Sunday 11th August followed by the Scottish Half on 18th August. 

It is looking like it is going to be a very tight race this year and could it come down to the final day of the Champs - Tweed Valley Ultra on offer that day with a tempting 25 bonus points available to break the deadlock? (Oooh) 

Two Breweries Recce

Last Saturday a few keen Moorfooters took on a recce of the Two Breweries hill race route. Alex, Dorien and Mike who have signed up for the race in September were keen to familiarise themselves with the 18 mile route, while Ewan and myself (Gillian) went along for a fun day out and remind ourselves why we didn’t enter the race ;-)

This year sees the 40th anniversary of the iconic race which starts at the Traquair Brewery (Traquair House ) and finishes at Broughton Brewery. Covering 18 miles (30km) over the hills with 4900ft (1500m) ascent it’s not for the faint hearted! Add to that the pressure of a self navigated course with 8 time controlled checkpoints on the hill tops!

A recce is a must for this race with landscapes changing throughout the year with forests being felled, deer fences erected, roads built, and ferns, heather & bogs all adding their own challenges!

Alex had suggested a recce at a nice social pace, so 5 of us gathered at the Bear Gates at 9am smiling and full of enthusiasm as the weather looked good for the first part of the day at least! 

   

Checking the OS map and strava route from a previous recce we headed off the road from Traquair into the hills. A nice steep farm track to warm the calves up, we tackled tricky farm gates, squelchy cow fields & waist high ferns before our first main hilltop of Birkscairn hill. Sometimes the downhill is worse than going up and with the view of the valley of Glensax and Hundleshope Heights on the other side, we had to gingerly make our way down through the heather past the grouse buts to the river, then slog all the way back up to Hundleshope!

   

Carrying on to Stob Law, the view from here was fantastic, seeing the entire length of the Pentlands, Arthur’s Seat and even Fife!

After the descent to Glenrath Farm, and the Manor Valley Road we were then into an area of tree felling on a massive scale! The route up through the trees to the checkpoint on Whitelaw hill seemed totally inaccessible, so we followed the drovers road and a new forest road up to the gate at Dead Wife’s grave. We weren’t too sure where the race route would go, so maybe another wee recce of this bit will be needed!?

I normally look forward to a downhill, but the descent down towards Stobo was another tough one and by this time I think we were all beginning to flag.

We were well past the halfway point by now though and with time pressing on, we were encouraged that we just had one more big hill to come, albeit Trahenna - the biggest of them all! The other thing pushing us on was the thought that the cafe in Broughton shut at 5:00 giving us just 2 hours! (Thankfully I’d taken the car to Broughton the night before so didn’t have the added pressure of having to make the 5:00 bus! )

A steady slog up past Stobo castle and Loch you are then faced with the sight of Trahenna and the choice of routes up to the top. Perhaps we took the wrong choice, but bogs, ferns & deer fences made our ascent more difficult than it should have been. Another bit to revisit another day to perfect the right route :-)

But we made it to the top nonetheless and were rewarded with the welcome sight of Broughton village down below.
The chance of making the cafe now was getting slim as we hit 4:30pm, but with 4G signal at the top of the hill we made the emergency call to the cafe getting in our orders for drinks & scones!

Spurred on by this thought it was then just a case of tip-toing down the sheer face of Trahenna and sprinting along the long straight tarmac road to the Laurelbank cafe! As luck would have it, the cafe was catering for a function that night and let us sit in for our very well earned cuppas & scone & jam!

It  had been a long hard day, but a good one! The rain stayed away, we had no accidents (other than a cut finger on a gate and a bit of cramp), we never got lost, never gave up, and didn’t fall out with each other  All in all a great challenging day out in the local hills, and good chance to test out our stamina, willpower and navigational skills!

Good luck and greatest respect to Alex, Dorien, and Mike, and anyone else doing the race on 28 September, it’s one I’ll be happy to support from the sidelines ;-) 

Entries are still open on Entry Central if you fancy it?! More details on https://twobreweries.org.uk/

Thank you Alex for organising, and all for a lovely day :-)