Suicide six(ish) off road race

Conditions for running last weekend were not good with a cold wind, rain and sleet greeting the field of almost 770 runners as they gathered for this popular race round Baggeridge Park and Himley Park near Sedgeley.
The rather chaotic start caught out many runners as the start whistle suddenly sounded and the athletes raced across the first field and car park to drop down to the lake before the first of the climbs on this testing six and a bit mile course.
Newport and District Running Club sent 22 runners to compete in this race and they were spread throughout the field with many of them acquitting themselves very well in the conditions.
Robin Guy's strength showed as he pushed all the way round to come in 15th in 42m 23s, a tremendous performance by any standards. A couple of minutes behind in 38th position was Noel Hogan in 44m 44s with Gary Postins chasing him over the line in 43rd place in 45m 00s.
Maurice Reid continued to show his improvement over the year to finish 55th in 45.48 and Nick Cooper put in a tremendous effort to beat several of his team mates and finish 76th in 47m 41s.
Graham Rogers is another runner who has made a lot of progress this year and so it proved again when he finished 82nd in 47.59 with Sandy Mackenzie not far behind in 86th in 48m 24s and Ian Atkinson 93rd in 48.44.
The race itself consisted of a twisting course around the country parks which contained a mixture of hills, mud forest tracks and a river crossing just to make life interesting, but none of this seemed to put off any of the competitors on the day.
Another Newport runner who seemed to revel in the mud was John Taylor who finished in 49.07 to be 101st. Steve Wootton and Mark Deighton seemed to be having their own personal battle, but Steve Just hung on in the sprint for the finish line to be 173rd in 52.36 with Mark 174th just three seconds adrift. Andrew Kay was also in close contention in 179th in 52.58.
Eamonn Dennis had a steady run to finish 308th in 57m 36s and Nigel Cooper was pleased to see the finish line in 58.42 and gain 334th position. The ever reliable Helen MacDonald-Jones showed her class again to be 371st in 60m 07s and take 3rd place in her category.
The evergreen John Brown was 460th in 64.11 with Paul Grubert following him shortly after in 475th in 64.48. One of the club's fairly recent members was Julie Wyant, but she did well to be 485th in 65.19 and Sonya Phillips and Tracy Taylor kept each other company around the course finishing 501st and 502nd respectively in 65.59 and Tracy just a second behind.
By the end of the race conditions had deteriorated considerably with almost horizontal sleet chilling the runners and the long suffering race marshals who had to stand out in it for almost two hours and who probably deserve a medal themselves.
Coming in 569th in 69.25 was Ceri Christie and completing the magnificent club line up on the day in 573rd place was Jennifer Price in 69.29.
All the runners seemed to enjoy the experience and said they would be back for another go next year.

Berlin Marathon

The Berlin Marathon was run recently in excellent weather conditions and the start was a spectacular one with 30,000 runners sent on their way at the same time as masses of balloons were released over the city.
Newport and District Running Club sent a contingent to Germany to contest the race and although they didn't get round quite as quickly as the new world best time of 2hrs 04m 26s, posted by Haile Gabrselassie, the did do very well with Robin Guy finishing in 3h 05m in only his second marathon, but a personal best by 41 mins. Rob Guest was next not too far ehind in 3.19 followed by Lucy Dalton from Telford Harriers in 3. 28 which was also a pb by a considerable margin.
Club stalwarts Steve Fowles did 3.34 and the ever reliable Mike Taylor, with his sister and brother in law as his support team, got round in 3.49.
The club even had an Irish contingent in the form of Bernie Holbrook and Eamon Dennis who did 4.05 and 4.10 respectively, with Eamon's time again being a pb by 15mins. Julian Withers was the final runner home in 4.46, but was still satisfied with his time.
The photo shows the runners in front of the finish at the Branndenburg Gate.

During the last weekend in October several members of Newport Running Club, amongst around 3000 others, travelled to Scotland to participate in the OMM. This annual event was celebrating its 40th year and took place in the Lowther Hills, which although not particularly craggy, consisted of some of the highest and steepest grassy hills to be found anywhere.
Mark Deighton and Sandy Mackenzie were involved in the medium score event, which meant they had a maximum of 6 hours on day one and 5 hours on day two to collect as many points as they could from as many controls as they could visit on what was effectively a giant orienteering course, but carrying everything they needed to survive for two days in the hills.
The weather on the mountains was poor on the Saturday with low cloud and rain making visibility only around 40 metres at times, so accurate navigation was essential to avoid being lost and losing time and points.
Mark was only just returning from a torn calf and his fitness was a little suspect and so it proved with him and Sandy coming in after four and a half hours, but still gaining 140 points on the day.
The overnight camp turned into a difficult experience for many teams. As the winds increased to around 60-70mph and the rain became torrential some teams were washed out or had their tents blown down, meaning they were extremely tired and uncomfortable by the next morning.
Mark and Sandy had quite a good night and were ready to consolidate their previous days score. After an initial climb of over 1500 feet the sun came out on the tops before they reached the first of the days checkpoints and they enjoyed good visibility for the rest of the day covering more ground than the day before in a similar time to gain another 120 points, making 260 in total, 223rd place in their category and a bronze award.
Also taking part in the medium score event were Roger Kerr and His brother Allan who had participated in several similar events in past years and used their experience to gain 190 points on day 1, 110 points on day 2, making 300 points and 200th place.
Throwing himself in at the deep end was Maurice Reid in his first attempt at such an event with his team mate Greg Hilliard who entered the long score class. Maurice really proved his fitness to achieve 195 points on day one, 125 points on day two making 320 overall to give them 176th place in their class. An excellent achievement.
Despite the daunting nature of the event and the awful weather they encountered en route all the participants seemed determined to go back and have another go next year.

The attached file is a picture of Sandy Mackenzie and Mark Deighton at the overnight camp before setting off an Sunday morning