Congratulations
Mon 7 June 2010 - Ian Taylor
Comrades Marathon etc
If you are finding Hill & Dales are bit short then aim next year to follow in the achievements of Martina Elliot and Brian Hamilton in completing the Comrades Marathon in South Africa last weekend. They finished together in 9:24:37, which might seem a bit slow for a marathon. However the famous Comrades event is an ultra marathon, with a distance of over 55 miles. Martina was 138th in her vet40 category out of 2186 while Brian was 29th in the vet60 age group out of 913 entrants. Both gained bronze medals. The fastest times were 5:29:01 (male) and 6:13:04 (female), with 23568 entrants. One of the videos show a very ecstatic Martina crossing the line.
Meanwhile closer to home Fred Hammond had a brilliant run in the 100 mile Long Distance Walkers event this year held in Scotland. The route covers road, track, path and heather - with too much of the latter. Fred took 28 hours 11 minutes to finish in 13th place out of 495 starters. The event was judged by many to be the toughest 100 in the last 10 years, in fact it was 104 miles not 100. There were 143 non-finishers - including this scribe who retired at 76 miles after 30 hours 46 minutes.
For something a little more manageable, you could try the Paps of Jura Fell race, also last weekend, with Trevor Wilson having a memorable trip to get there and hence having a very slow time in the race. The winner over the 15 mile route, with 7500 feet of climb, was Rob Jebb of Bingley in 3:28:36 with Trevor taking a more leisurely 6:50:46. For many years BARF have had an annual trip to this race, with Denis Rankin completing about ten events - as its now down to one BARF participant there is an opportunity for anpother club to take up the mantle.
As I've just had a long email from Trevor outlining the hazards of cycling to Jura, I'd better add a bit more to the previous paragraph. Trevor was slightly late for the Troon ferry and had to go to Cairn Ryan instead, and hence had a 100 mile cycle before the Jura race. Despite legs like jelly he managed to navigate in the mist to the first top, just within the cutoff time and then completed the race, finishing second last. He missed another ferry on the way home - you normally take three ferries to get to Jura from Belfast and then after 22 hours without sleep, on the towpath within 2 miles of home crashed his bike. Congratulations to Trevor on maintaining his ompletion record of seven consecutive Jura races.
