Wednesday 17 August 2011

Mid week Mini mm.

 Monsal Head & back of Rays head
This year Dark and White had organised a series of midweek mini mountain marathons.  Ray and I missed the first two rounds but managed to get together for round three, a two hour score event starting from Monsal Head in the Peak District.

Due to its farmland location, the course stuck to footpaths and rights of way, unlike a full mountain marathon which takes competitors off piste.

In true Team Ibuprofen style, we set off in completely the wrong direction. Oops. After turning the map the right way round we managed to start picking off controls. Summer showers kept us cool and it felt like we were doing OK. Until control #15. We weren't the only ones. A confusion of footpaths had caught us and several other competitors out. Time wasting trial and error led us to the elusive checkpoint. Just leaving us time to head back, picking up a few controls on the way in.

Finishing 43rd of 61, 9th in class, we didn't disgrace ourselves and enjoyed getting out to stretch our legs and exercise our brains.
Another good one from Dark and White.

12 comments:

  1. They really are fun events. I did the Mini Mountain series earlier in the year with my friend Tracy as a mixed team. We enjoyed it so much that we've signed up for the RAB & the Omm. All those free cups of tea and biscuits must have gone to my head :)

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  2. that sounds like a very respectable result. i'm sure that sort of navigation is trickier, i'm always better off piste.....(lost) ;)

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  3. Hey Steve - I did this too. Didn't bump into you I'm afraid because I started just before seven. By then it was peeing down pretty much continuously. Sorry to have missed you. Jim

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  4. DG;Yeh they are good fun. Maybe see you at the Rab.

    Kate; Just how we like it, lost!

    Jim; Shame to miss you. We were quite glad of the rain. I reckon it would have been too hot without it.

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  5. this way! no this way! you've been watching too many laurel and hardy folms methinks ;)

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  6. Aah, good work Steve. I must enter one of these soon, shame to miss Monsal Head event as I know that area well!

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  7. Very well done as usual, young man. You weren't lost, you were just showing the rest of the folks you could run that distance with a little tacked on...totally hardcore : )

    Why do chicken coops have two doors?
    If they had four, they would have to be called chicken sedans...

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  8. UC; My running and racing can definitely be classed as 'Comedy'.

    Simon; Hope you are on the mend.

    Dark and white are running a 3 race series this autumn/winter.http://www.darkandwhite.co.uk/mountain-marathons.asp

    Jessie; Why did the pterodactil cross the road?

    Because chickens hadn't evolved

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  9. It looks that you had a very nice time looking for the right direction and running at the same time. I haven´t done any race like this at the moment but I would like to try it in the future, (and I hope do it in the right way...).
    Regards,
    Miguel

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  10. Magubueno; They are good fun. A great way to spend time in the hills. The pace is much slower than in fell races as you can only run as fast as you can navigate, which in my case, is not very fast.

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  11. What a pity that lost time ....
    Still ....Good position at the end!
    Regards.

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Cheers
Steve