If you had woken up Firday night from the sound of heavy and persistent rain, it probably put a smile on your face as you contemplated not having to break the ice at the Brutal, or swimming through the mud at Stanmer Park in Brighton, beacuse it's not parliament hill and you know the chalk drains quickly.
We packed everything ready for heavy rain and it was with a big relief that the rain had passed through before the dawn finally rose over the two courses.
We're now working through The SEAA XC Championships from Stanmer Park Brighton (Gallery will be here
http://bit.ly/SEAA-XC-Gallery-2015) and then next up is the Canterbury 10 from Sunday (that gallery will be here
http://bit.ly/Canterbury-10-Gallery-2015 ).
I'll post a blog as soon as things are online. Remember we post to
facebook and
twitter as soon as we make galleries live - which is faster than the blog news email.
The Women Only Brutal 10 on Saturday was held at Long Valley (north) near Aldershot, on the side of the road nearer to the airfield at Farnborough. Conditions the day before had inch thick ice and hard ground under foot, but consistent rain and a warm front coming through overnight meant by Saturday morning all the ice had gone, and the ground had softened with a temperature up to the 5degC !! The cars thankfully didn't need scraping at 6:30 in the morning !
The temperature on the day was pretty warm for the time of year, with low bright sun actually making things quite tricky for photography, but we're always more grateful for that than rain, so no complaints really.
As I wasn't there I can't really type much more (I wasn't there) except it certainly looks like another great event by the Brutal team - almost 800 competitors on the day running about in the mud - which I bet will become a permanent fixture on the Brutal calendar - so - here's some photos we've picked out to give you a feel for it...
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| Dave gives the briefing |
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| ready and raging |
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| Tony gets the close up for the warmup |
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| can we surrender ? |
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| The calm before the storm |
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| Here we go ! |
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| Some nice dry track |
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| some nice wet track |
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| Nothing that a pair of cowgirls can't cope with |
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| Look - Ice !! |
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| "look what I found" |
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| Brutal Babes out in force |
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| All smiles |
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| uh oh - who did that ? |
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| Mucky Becky clearly can't keep on her feet... |
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| The Dutch contingent...? |
Very well done to everyone and I hope the injured person getswell soon... cold conditions but nothing too mental on the day has probably helped a little bit to lift everyones spirits.
We're getting through cataloguing the South of England XC championships all day Monday with the whole team here in the office, and hopefully with a bit of luck we will also get to the Canterbury 10 too.
I'll blog again when they're all done, about 80,000 images to get through, so please bear with...
Until next time - make sure you book your place at the
Southampton Half (because who wanted to go to London anyway ?), and the
Surrey Half (because you need to do two halves to make a marathon)
all the best and well done at the weekend !
Anthony
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