Welcome

Whitworth Thread 14th February 2015

The winner of this month's Thread was Luke Beresford in 17.57.  First lady Christine Howard 20.24.

"February always seems to be one of our busiest months at the Thread and you didn’t disappoint this year with 94 of you turning out in the mist to complete the course!! I do believe we had at least another half a dozen start the race but retired early without crossing the line, so we will have to wait a bit longer to reach the magic 100!!

The morning started with a bit of a panic for Thread HQ, turning up at the Whitworth Centre to find it was all locked up without a caretaker in sight! A quick text to our leader, currently holidaying in Morocco, and the ‘break in’ instruction was received! Luckily, just as Dennis was reaching for the crowbar, the rattle of keys came around the corner!

So to the run itself…. love was obviously in the air this morning as you all seemed to have chased each other round the course very quickly – with 84 of you completing the run in less than 31 minutes!! With 30 new runners and 22 PBs it’s certainly been a busy morning for Thread HQ!

You proved again what a generous lot you are as you raised £117.32 for the Jacob Holmes Trust!

It was great to see so many youngsters running and a good turnout for the Matlock Athletics Club Junior Grand Prix!

We must add our thanks to the marshals (Lewis, Alice, Dennis, Ray etc) who stepped in to cover ‘annual leave’ (unauthorised I may add!).

A final plea if I may! We have had a few issues with the results due to people crossing the line and refusing a token along with people crossing the line twice. It does cause us a headache to try and resolve so the motto is ‘Cross the line once only and take a token – no matter what!’ If any of you think your results are incorrect today please get in touch.

See you next month…"

Full results and photos - www.5kprkrunderbyshire.co.uk

BDL Final - The Results

Booths Decorators League Cross Country Final

Holmebrook Country Park  - Chesterfield

The Results

 Well in the end it was almost too close to call and nothing can detract from Matlock AC having enjoyed an outstanding season in this competition. We can take great pride in claiming a fantastic second position in both the men's and combined competitions along with a a superb 3rd place in the ladies contest. The men's team finish level in first but lose out by a narrow margin on accumulated scores over the 5 races - a wonderful achievement. Congratulations go to the winning Sutton and Heanor teams, we will be back next year to press you even harder now our juniors have had a taste of the action!

After pre-race concerns over the state of the course had abated a record turnout of 30 Matlock runners took to the start line in bright and sunny conditions to race over an undulating 2 lap course of approx 5.5 miles featuring the usual Holmebrook mud along with a bit of ice and snow thrown in for good measure. The front end of the race saw the Heanor men's 'A' team trying to dominate to claw back the 1 point lead we held going into the race, but Ian Philips led the resistance by finishing 3rd overall to ensure the final outcome went to count back. Another set of fine performances from ZaK Hodgkinson, Ben Cartrwright, Joe Hallas, Richard Bradbury in his annual XC race, Alan Pickering and Andy Lessiter saw us fighting to make it a hard fought contest right to the bitter end, all this in spite of a few of these rallying to the call off their sick beds. 

The ladies produced another fine display, being led home on this occasion with a sparkling run by Kelly Thorneycroft, to finish 3rd on the day and maintain the same position in the overall standings in front of the threatening race hosts NDRC. Another pair of excellent performances from Christine Howard, with her 2nd race in 2 days, and Alison Pye made sure we finished with a top 3 position and cemented our 2nd place in the combined competition.

A measure of our success can be seen in the individual categories. By my reckoning we have won 5 age groups ranging from Joe Hallas in the junior male section through to Clive Russell in the MV70 section, along with wins for Anthony Marchington, Jan Forrester and Mick Moorhouse. Add to these a clutch of silver and bronze medals, and the awards evening will in May will be a celebration of great team and individual achievements. 

The real success of the competition has been the numbers taking part, and only an unfortunate injury to new first claim member Kieran Allwood deprived us of a record finishing total. And a warm welcome to the Mead's on their BDL debuts - go on admit it, that was much more fun than Tigger Tor. We have come a long way from our first race at Shipley Park in 2012 when we were frantically counting heads to make sure we had enough to form the teams, so a massive thank you to everyone who has run since then and contributed to taking the club forward and becoming a leading contender for honours. A good number of those stalwarts who did a fine job at our debut race were present again yesterday, but unfortunately Simon Croft missed his first ever BDL race due to family commitments. Full MAC results as follows:

3rd - Ian Phillips 32-53 3rd SM
11th - Zak Hodgkinson 35-10 10th SM
14th - Ben Cartwright 35-30 13th SM
15th - Joe Hallas 35-43 1st JM
16th - Rich Bradbury 35-45 1st MV40
34th - Andy Lessiter 39-03 6th MV40
35th - Alan Pickering 39-10 3rd MV50
45th - Karl Webster 40-21 6th MV45
47th - Kelly Thorneycroft 40-50 3rd SL
60th - Christine Howard 42-03 1st LV40
66th - Peter Wilmot 42-31 12th MV45
71st - Mick Moorhouse 42-54 1st MV60
81st - Jim Thorneycroft 43-30 4th MV55
84th - John Hurley 43-48 5th MV55
86th - Anthony Marchington 43-58 6th MV55
95th - Martin Lea 45-08 15th MV45
103rd - Dennis Belbin 45-44 32nd SM
107th - Alison Pye 46-03 8th SL
116th - Nicola Dick 45-58 3rd LV50
122nd - Mick Kuszynski 47-44 15th MV50
127th - Steve Mead 48-17 16th MV50
128th - Neil Webster 48-20 19th MV45
134th - Clive Russell 49-03 1st MV70
135th - Sian Mead 49-14 4th LV50
148th - Becky Mead 51-36 11th SL
154th - Jan Forrester 52-19 1st LV60
160th - Paul Keetley 53-04 6th MV60
168th - Helen Brunt 55-42 12th SL
170th - Julie Goodwin 56-38 4th LV45

In a race of 192 finishers the winner was Joe Rainsford of Heanor RC in 32-19, and the ladies winner in a time of 38-03 was Michelle Willcocks of Sutton Harriers. 

It has been a season of so many highs, and one of much promise for the future with the performances of our younger athletes. It has been so positive to see us gathering together as a cohesive group, and we can claim a sense of satisfaction through achieving our final finishing positions by only having one counting result coming from a second claim member in whole of the series. So a great season, great racing against a fine set of neighbouring clubs, great team mates, and an absolutely fantastic club to represent.

Proposal of a later training session for Monday night adults

It’s Monday night......but just a bit later.

 

As the club is becoming more popular and the training sessions are getting busier we are looking at ways to make training more accessible.  We would like to put on a 7pm training session on a Monday night for adults who are unable to make the earlier one or for those who prefer to run a bit later. 

If this appeals to you, to gauge an idea of interest please add your views to the thread in the Forum.

 

 

 

Dennis

Whitworth Thread 10th January 2015

Breezy was the watchword today. There was such a gust, we did fear that Threaders would be put off, but they are obviously much hardier than we realise.  95 is the best turnout yet.

For MAC Zak Hodgkinson(17.14)  just managed to hold off Billy Cartwright(17.21)  to come within 9 seconds of the course record – pretty impressive given the conditions. Once again first woman back was MACs Christine Howard in 20.49 with Alison Pye taking 2^nd place in 22.13.

There were 17 new runners today and amongst the 7 new young runners Oscar Atkinson, Matthew Forman and Alfie Patterson managed all 4 laps – excellent effort lads.  Freya Lester 7 years old and achieving her first complete 5k distance with 4 laps.  There were also 14 PBs today.

However, jolly well done to Margaret Keeling and Christine Middleton for completing their 10^th Thread to enter our 50k club.  Can both get in touch with their charity nominations and a future run’s donations will be passed along.

£86.12 will be going to Cancer Research – Liz Cameron – can you contact Thread HQ to claim the purse for your chosen charity and the running total is now £1184.19.

So……February’s run. Let’s not have the usual petering out of will power after a glorious start to the New Year. Thread HQ has its eye fixed on breaking that 100 barrier.

BDL Race No.4 Trent Meadows

It's the penultimate race of the BDL XC this Sunday at Trent Meadows, Long Eaton. This is a race that is of huge importance in determining the destination of the team trophies, and as we lead the men's category and are second in the ladies and combined competitions another big turnout will be immense in attempting to consolidate our positions leading to the last race in February. We can also secure our first series victories in the individual age groups, so we are set for another exciting Sunday. Meet at Cromford Wharf at 9.00 to arrange car sharing. All club members age 14+ are welcome to run, just remember to bring your club vest or t-shirt and the race starts at its usual time of 11.00am. Further details on the forum and Facebook page.