Bullock Smithy Hike 2019 – updated 23 Sept

The Hike

The results are up on the hike website.  Kevin Hoult’s time has been corrected since those times were posted originally, and I’ve now updated the Runfurther leaderboard to match.  Rory Harris finished in a blistering 8:10, making Runfurther points hard to come by for all the other men on the hike.  Kevin Hoult finished second in 8:52, then Lawrence Eccles came in third in 9:17.  Next to finish in 10:21 were Jayne Lawton and Richard Kendall, making Jayne the first woman home by over two hours.  Coming in together in 23rd place were Sophie Kirk and Stephanie Wood in 12:34.

From Kevin Hoult: “Perfect weather conditions for a long run and the usual well organised and marshalled event you would expect.”  Apart from that I’ve got no information about how the hike went, but Nick Ham was on the DNF list, so I hope he’s OK.  He pulled out due to his recurrent vertigo problem (the illness, not a fear of heights).  He did get some photos before he had to stop though, and you can find them on his Flickr site.  As usual I’ve borrowed a couple to use here.

Nigel Aston wrote up his run (his 16th completion), and you can read that here.  Karen’s away so wasn’t at the event.

Runfurther championship standings

I’ve updated the Runfurther leaderboard.  Rory Harris is looking unassailable for this year’s men’s title, although theoretically he could still be beaten by anyone who’s already won any of this year’s races.  Kevin Hoult is looking a safe bet for second place.  David Chetta is currently third with good headroom over those behind him, and is the most likely to finish in third place.

Sabrina Verjee is still looking good for this year’s women’s title, but I wouldn’t put it past Karen Nash to finish first woman at Rotherham and one of the other two remaining races.  If she does that, and Sabrina doesn’t win one of the remaining races, then Karen will probably win out.  Hayley Evans is in a similar position to Karen, and could also end up champion, but I’ve no idea whether she’s going to be trying to win any of the remaining races – Karen’s got form and if I know her she’ll probably be intending to give it a go.  Anyway, Hayley needs a win at the Three Towers and one of the other two races to overhaul Sabrina.

Karen’s got the women’s V50 title in the bag as usual, and Janet Hill the women’s V60, again not for the first time.  Martin Terry looks set for another MV50 title.  No V60 or V70 men have run four counters yet, but the most likely contenders are Alwyn Nixon and Bob Nash respectively – Alwyn needs to run the Dig Deep 30, and Bob needs to run at Rotherham to make up the counters.

Valley Striders are currently heading the team championship, with Team Krypton close behind.

10 Peaks Brecon Beacons 2016

Well done to everyone who ran the Brecon Beacons race.  I wasn’t there, so I can’t tell you much about it.  Karen was though, and she’s written up her blog.  The photos here are hers, and Karen’s blog is here.

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First home was David Chetta (Mercia FR) in 12:27:25, 2nd was Jonathan Williams in 12:33:35.  Matt Tomlinson and Robin Carter finished together next, three minutes after Jonathan.  Karen was 12th in 15:57:48, and 1st woman.  Eluned Malone was 2nd woman in 17:09:29, 23rd overall.  Anri Cohen was 3rd woman, in just under 18 hours.  98 started but only 68 finished – it was a hard race!  The full results are up on SPORTident here.

Karen Nash - 1st woman

Karen Nash – 1st woman

The race didn’t make much difference to the Runfurther standings, so I won’t do any more predictions on those until after the High Peak 40.  The updated Runfurther leaderboard is here.  Andy Davies, Michelle Brooks, Mick Dobson, Noel Hogan and Jamie Glazebrook have earned Runfurther Giraffe neck adornments – see me at the HP40 to claim yours if you haven’t got it already.  Adam Worrallo and Nick Olszewski need to finish the HP40, then they can have a Giraffe too.

Finally, Nigel Aston ran the Bullock Smithy challenge on 3/4 September and has written up his run.  You can find that here.

See you at the High Peak 40!

Andy

Bullock Smithy 2015

Well I wasn’t there, so I can’t talk a lot about the Bullock Smithy.  I was running the Across Wales Walk instead.  Karen and Nick were there though, and were handing out Giraffe neckwear to those who’ve run 4 counters.  Nick seems to have had a very good run, and Karen, unusually for her, had a bit of a hard time – still wrecked after racing in the Pyrenees I think.  Anyway, Karen’s written her Bullock Smithy up with a few photos on her blog here.  Nick’s posted his photos to Flickr now, and they are here.  Nigel Aston’s report of his run is here, with a few of Nick’s photos in it.

Race results

First home was Neil Thompson in 9:04, second was last year’s Runfurther champ Ian Symington (Calder Valley FR) in 9:35, and 3rd was Stephen Jones (Stockport Harriers) in 9:59.  First woman home was Jayne Lawton in a very fast time of 10:30, a few minutes slower than her record from last year.  Karen Nash was 2nd in 12:34, with Lesley Sinclair 7 minutes behind her.  All these times are from the “live results” feed – the official results hadn’t been posted yet when I wrote this.

Runfurther leaderboards

The leaderboard and team board have been updated from the live feed data, and you can find them here.  Apologies for the errors in the original posting (7 September) – thanks to Nick H for pointing them out.  No end of things can go wrong when you copy and paste from a web page into Excel!  Karen Nash and David Wilson are still in line for Grand Slams – 9 down, 3 to go.

Neither Nicky Spinks or Mary Gillie ran the Bullock Smithy, and neither has entered the Hardmoors 60.  Entries for that have now closed, so I think that hands the women’s title to Karen Nash once more.  She’ll be first FV50 as well of course, and I think Sally Howarth is probably going to be 2nd FV50.  Janet Hill will be first FV60.

The men’s side of things is becoming a lot more interesting now.  Stewart Bellamy is still leading the pack, and Kevin Hoult could still pass him if he runs really well at Jedburgh.  I think they’ll both be overtaken by events though, as Ian Symington ran the Bullock Smithy, coming 2nd, and has entered the Hardmoors 60.  He’ll be in the lead after that, if he keeps up his current form, and neither Stewart nor Kevin will be able to catch him.  Ian’s going to have his work cut out to hang on to that lead though, as Ken Sutor has also entered the Hardmoors 60.  With 2 wins under his belt, Ken’s got to be the best bet to win this year, with Ian just behind him, but either could win it and they’ve not met yet this year in a Runfurther race.  The Hardmoors will see them run against each other, but the title won’t be decided until Jedburgh in October, as Ken hasn’t yet run a Medium event.  They’ve both entered Jedburgh.

Martin Terry is still on course to overhaul Chris Davies to be first MV50 – he needs to hold his form with a good run at Jedburgh to do it.  Chris can’t be caught as first MV60 – I’ve done my best but it wasn’t good enough!  And of course Bob Nash will be first MV70.

Team Krypton are currently leading the team competition, closely followed by Mercia Fell Runners and Calder Valley Fell Runners.  TK and Mercia have 11 counters each, but CVFR only have 10 and can easily overtake if they get those two counters.  Both Ian Symington and Kevin Hoult have entered the races they need, so CVFR have got to be favourites.

Race entries

The Hardmoors 60 and the Jedburgh Ultra have both stopped taking any more entries.  I think there are still places for the Isle of Man.  Don’t forget to enter the Full Tour of Pendle asap as well, as we need you at the Runfurther AGM and Prizegiving in Barley on Saturday 14 November.  Full details on the race website here.

And finally…

Congratulations to Elise Milnes on her Joss Naylor Lakeland Challenge round.