Monday 26 November 2012

3 Molehills 2012 now live

The Gallery from the 3 Molehills is now live and online here:

http://bit.ly/ETL-3-Molehills-2012-Official-Gallery

Somehow this year we have seemed to be quite lucky with sunday races. Despite heavy torrential rain on Friday and Saturday with the subsequent floods and problems around the country, Sundays seem to be keeping dry. Well dry enough that you don't need to be wearing every layer of plastic in the cupboard and covering the camera up. The cameras can withstand heavy showers, but honestly - it's nice to have warm dry hands.

Sufffice to say, despite Nicky and Alan getting wet in the rain marking out the course, on the day the 3 Molehills went off in the dry, essentially unaffected by the rain, apart from avoiding the stepping stones on the river crossing, well because they wern't stepping stones, they were submerged hazards to passing commercial cargo ships. And a bit of muddy course got re-routed at the top of the third leg because, well, it was very muddy. So over the bridge and then off up Box Hill for the view.
I'll point out at this juncture, whilst there is a view, photographically there isn't, and with that bit to the lookout  point for you to enjoy is lovely (that's why the lookout point is there) with runners crossing in front of other runners, going sideways across the lookout on the path - if we were to get the view we wouldn't be getting you, or we would, but not your number, and honestly - you're never going to find them without the number.

The 3 Molehills is a conglomeration of three routes over three hills (which are - for the record - bigger than molehills) which adds up to roughly a half marathon, but not exactly. Each leg goes back to the race HQ, and that means they also run a team race of which there were 48 this year. I've not seen any clever shinanigans in the results where four people enter two teams ( Team 1 A,B,C, Team 2 C,D,A so runners A and C run twice) like I've seen at some triathlon relays in Southwater, but it has potential for that and so you *could* if you're good enough come first and second...
I've also not seen any full race runners where they have done the first leg of a team entry - but there's potential for that too.. The fact that the first 9 individual runners beat the relay teams leaves some room for the relay teams for next year !

Anyway - as a special offer - if you're in a relay team - make sure you put all your team names in if you order a collection and we will include all the team members photos in the collection. There that's your christmas present to your friends sorted...

The full results and team results can be found here (currently via their front page news) from Nicky and Alan here:  http://www.eventstolive.co.uk/   or just go to their results pages !

before the fun photos from yesterday - some dates for your diary:

Next Sunday 2nd December
Hogs Back 10k - Free photos - nr Guildford
Crowborough 10k - not sure they will be doing the ford crossing with this much rain

December 8th - Sat
Brutal 10k - Long Valley - real XC runner challenges

December 9th
Seaford Mince Pie 10mile - run from Peacehaven.

December 16th
RPAC Holly Run - Reigate

December 29th - Sat
Brutal 10k Longmore

January 1st 2013
Serpentine NYD 10k

And a quick shout out to our friends who we saw briefly at the Running Show at Sandown, Paul and Britta  from Run247.com , John Lunt from Human Race, The new Richmond13.1 race team of Peter and Richard , Dan from Xempo.co.uk and Toby and Rory from allabouttriathlons.co.uk. Rory gets a special mention for giving Jessica his "spare" Chocolate muffin. Which was probably Tobys. Sorry Toby, 5yr olds eh ?

Right, here's the photo bit, Sally covered it this year, as I needed a day off (I've been in the office or covering races every day since July!) - and as ever did a better job than me...


Hello Ruth !

Flying relay change onto the second leg




the famous tshirt design that's been on the apprentice..Badger Half


see the nice vinyard in the background





Fly faster - there's a buggy about to run you over...

Right, until next time,
Anthony






Tuesday 20 November 2012

Brighton 10k 2012 and Brutal Bordon now live



These Latest Race Galleries are now live:

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The Brutal 10k, Bordon 
Gallery is now live here: http://bit.ly/Brutal-Bordon-2012-Official-Photos


The Brooks Brighton 10k
Gallery is now live here: http://bit.ly/Brighton-10k-2012-Official-Photos


Weekends of work continue, it's almost the end of the season..one day I'll get a day off.

The lucky run of perfect weather at the weekend for running outside continues. Although to be honest, most of the brutal runners could have done with heavy rain showers as they finished on Saturday just to dislodge some of the mud. It lived up to it's name in more ways than one. The most amusing part of the day was probably watching people getting squeamish over the first water ditch with 3 inches of water in it - guys that was just the pre-swimming pool foot wash, as you found out.
The good thing about this course was that it started off relatively gently and then descended into the hell gradually, including rather appropriately a very challenging descent on the way round towards the really bad mud, giving me even more poetic license for that analogy.

I'm not sure what it is about the type of people who we see at these races, but they are a different subgroup on the venn diagram of running. I shall illustrate.
So you'll see that not everyone who does these things are what we would call your typical 10k race runners, but they are overwhelmingly people up for a challenge and willing to have a good go at things, and usually smiling (which we still don't understand). I'm just wondering how long it's going to be before some of the larger consultancy companies start trying to recruit people at these things or indeed start to enter teams as part of their own morale and out of office activities. This time I'm sure I saw a group of trainee lawyers from Guildford giving it a go, I just hope none of them got injured... The other thing - we've noticed is that it has a much wider age group than the normal runs we see which are usually 30-60 years old biased. These races are much more 18 to 60 - which is refreshing to see. To date it's the first race we have ever seen in 10 years that has a 100% re-offender rate on the runnersworld reviews - which means something special.

Anyway, the next one is on the 8th of December, they are never crowded mass crazy anonymous events, they are purposely restricted so places are hard to get - so if after running the flat and perfect Brighton 10k you need the antidote for the end of the road season - then this is the one for you - go here to find out more: BrutalRun.co.uk
And if you don't believe me - have a look at the photos we took on Saturday lower down...or indeed the online gallery http://bit.ly/Brutal-Bordon-2012-Official-Photos



Brooks Logo

Sunday started early for the Brighton 10k, mainly because we were still working on the Brutal photos until 2:30am getting that gallery live because we knew the Brighton 10k was going to be a big race and wanted to make sure the decks were clear.
Perfect weather greeted us down on the coast at 8am, a whisper of wind and blue skies.  Those of you who know the area well would have been surprised by the lack of prevailing wind from the west - so no negative splits on the return leg this year. With more than four sub 30min runners registered for the race it was going to be a fast one, and we braced ourselves for the start - with more than 2700 runners penned up and ready to go you could see the heat haze rising into the air above them with anticipation.

Reg Hook has penned an excellent review of the race here : http://www.sussexathletics.org.uk/news.php?id=1251 for Sussex Athletics, so I don't need to repeat it here, the main facts are it wasn't quite sub 30 for Paul Martelletti #3601, because he hit 30:00 spot on, and the Womens winner Caryl Jones #21 from Swansea pretty much ate the Women's record for breakfast by 40seconds down to 32:34. In this high-speed, fast and flat 10k she came 17th overall - which is an awesome performance and an age grade of 93.14% - i.e. very very good.

This years race also signaled the last year that Chris Carter was going to be in charge. For over 19 years he has held the reins of the race, and grown it to what it is today. For those of you who don't know, Chris (amongst other things) ran in the 800m at the Mexico Olympics in 1968 and is currently the chairman of the AAA . I'd like to take the chance to thank him for his personal support and encouragement over the last 10 years with our race photography service. Back when the 10k was manually timed and Chris invited us along our race photos provided invaluable evidence for confirming the results. With the introduction of chip timing we still support the race when numbers get swapped, missed or chips forgotten and some of the stories Chris shares with us are some of the funniest we get from Race Directors. He will be sorely missed as the main man at this race, but I'm sure we will see him around at Withdean Track, Hove Parkrun and generally helping out in the background as ever, but on that note I'm sure you will all join me in thanking him for making the Brighton 10k what it is today.

I'd also like to say a collective and belated hello to all of you who said hello or waved at me individually as you ran past at the start, 3k or finish. I love this race because it has so many friends running in it. If I wanted to I could have spent all morning just chatting to everyone - not getting 5 yards before meeting someone else to talk to (but that doesn't help with the job unfortunately). I love that about this race and it gives me personally a huge emotional boost in terms of enjoying and contributing to the running scene in Sussex, and the contacts and friends I've made over the years since first running for Brighton & Hove AC to now are truly invaluable.

A small handful of photos from the race are below - the full results can be accessed from the brighton10k pages here http://www.brooksbrighton10k.co.uk/results
We have put over 30,000 images on the gallery here and there is a rare team picture of us at the end after it all - https://twitter.com/UKSportPhoto/status/270128163084984320/photo/1 collectively holding over £20k of camera kit in that one picture...

Right, here's some of the pictures from the two races, first up Brutal, then Brighton. Enjoy !

The cutest runner on the Canicross category

Pensive about the first foot wash

Lost a contact lens here somewhere

Yep, this is OK

Walking along a rotten log over a mud bath would seem like teasing the inevitable

some went in up to their knees, others their elbows

instant hilarity and comradeship

walk like an Egyptian

If you're lucky you get the jaccuzi to yourself

Going down...

Ladies winner, just getting stuck in

7.6 for swan dive style

3.2, poor entry

5.7, good gurning

8.2 up to your neck in it

Ootang arms

Happy as a man free on a Saturday morning

Going home to watch match of the day

Normal Saturday morning stuff

zombie alert

she was smiling because of something. We don't know what.

carefully picking your way doesn't necessarily make it drier.

Hulk he angry

Even the Marshals make sure the course is safe

click to zoom in and see the heat haze above the heads at the start

they're off, the winner Paul is in the white cap

Thumbs up of support for the runner next to him with terminal cancer.

Looking far too fresh at 3k

Almost a mobot

Mobot or hair scrunchee sorting ?

no press thank you...a good finish

needs to angle that down a bit if he's going for the self portrait

How did Charlotte get on ?

That view

I hope he didn't run the whole way like this

Victory !

run-in-synch

Jason wanted an alibi for something so I helped provide the evidence

Chris Carter gets things ready with just over a minute to go

Remember - don't forget your shoes next time






Right, as ever, until next time go safely.
In the meantime I'm still working on my photographer/chef , amateur/professional analogy for a blog one day, I'll keep you posted.

And don't forget the Hogs Back race on the 2nd of December or the Crowborough 10k
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 laters
Anthony