Serpentine NYD 10k and 3k 2016 gallery now live

The Winter Wonderland grew even bigger this year (it usually only reaches the tree in the back left) - leading to the infamous prison wall of Hyde Park lining the starting pen side and blocking the view of the Ferris wheel. 

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The Serpentine NYD 10k and 3k 2016

50m on from the start and all was forgotten of the winter wonderland as everyone zoomed off around the Park.

Our 9th year of covering the Serpentine New Years Day 10k and the gallery is now live here http://bit.ly/Serpentine-10k-Gallery-2016

If you have missed the last event - the gallery list is here - scroll down for the list of all events ever: http://gallery.sussexsportphotography.com/libraryhome.tlx?events=all 

Date	Event	Event type	Gallery Link
Mon-28/12/2015	Brutal Longmoor	XC - challenge	http://bit.ly/Brutal-Longmoor-2015-gallery
Fri-01/01/2016	The NYD Serpentine 10k and 3k	10k	http://bit.ly/Serpentine-10k-Gallery-2016
Future Events	.	.	Link to the Event via Gallery
Sun-17/01/2016	ETL Denbies10	10m	http://bit.ly/ETL-Denbies10-gallery-2015
Sat-23/01/2016	Brutal Women Only	10k	http://bit.ly/Brutal-Women-Only-Gallery-2016
Sun-24/01/2016	Brutal Men only	XC - challenge	http://bit.ly/Brutal-Men-Only-Gallery-2016
Sun-24/01/2016	Fred Hughes 10	10m	http://bit.ly/Fred-Hughes-10-Gallery-2016
Sun-07/02/2016	Watford Half	half marathon	http://bit.ly/Watford-Half-Gallery-2016
Sun-07/02/2016	ETL Bookham 10k	XC	http://bit.ly/Bookham-10k-Gallery-2016
Sat-13/02/2016	Brutal Bagshot	XC - challenge	http://bit.ly/Brutal-Bagshot-Gallery-2016
Sun-14/02/2016	*NEW* Worthing Half Marathon	half marathon	http://bit.ly/worthing-half-2016
Sun-21/02/2016	Hampton Court Half Marathon	half marathon	http://bit.ly/Hampton-Court-Half-Gallery-2016

Congratulations as ever to the Serpentine Running Club on managing to get a team of volunteers and indeed competitors to turn up on the most hungover day of the year. This is no small feat and could explain why there are not that many races on the day. 

This was one of the warmest days it has been in the last 9 times - temperatures around 10 degrees, and what wind there was came from the west helping runners in on their final push along the edge of the serpentine itself. This may be why the winning time was a fast one :

Results including your bib numbers are here on the fabulous DBmax results website: 

http://dbmaxresults.co.uk/results.aspx?CId=16421&RId=2114

Men - 

1st James McMurray #396 of St Albans Striders in 30:39, 

2nd Adam Kirk-Smith #329 of London Heathside in 32:37,  & 

3rd Mark Ryall #518 of Milton Keynes AC in 32:44; 

Women - 

1st Emma Pallant #458 of Team Dillon in 35:02, 

2nd Michelle Dillon #140 of Team Dillon in 38:16,  & 

3rd Lydia O'Donoghue #449 of Ealing Eagles in 39:08, 

The winning team were men - London Heathside and women Team Dillon - very well done to you all !

Next Weekend - County XC Champs 2016 - not there this year...

It's the county cross-country championships weekend - Sussex County Champs will be at Bexhill this year (as usual) on Saturday the 9th January - http://www.sussexathletics.org.uk/forms.php#form185

Emily enjoys slipping about in the mud

For various reasons we will NOT be there this year, so here's a shout out to all those club photographers we often see around the various courses - this is your chance to make sure you get those good shots of your friends and club mates representing your teams for a lasting memory for them. Good luck in the dark woods where all the best mud shots are !

We have covered the Sussex county XC championships every year from 2005 to 2015 and now have probably got quite a historic archive of every top club runner in Sussex from this past decade (except for the sprinters ;-) ). Everyone is findable on our archives - all you need are the results to know your race numbers...which are in the results (?) so it's a shame to not cover this year, if only for the continuing archive records. 

Last years XC champs race is on our archive here http://bit.ly/Sussex-XC-2015-champs 

It's one of our aims to get all our old archived events back online over the next few years - it's a massive task if you bear in mind we posted over 3 million images last year alone - it's all about finding an online storage solution that is affordable and workable.

Last years XC race - going fast and furious

New Year resolutions anyone ?

We haven't made any specific New Years resolutions here in the office, except to do more exercise (which shouldn't be too difficult). We have made some significant strategic changes through last year, and have some more to come into the years to come - continuous improvement continues ! (although if we win the £46M lottery roll over - those might be the first plans to hit the wall...). We have recently taken delivery of about 72Tb of data storage - so have a little bit more capacity now as backup too, which is nice.

Get your race entries in early

Around about now all I see are facebook discussions on which races everyone is entering - my only advice is to get entered into them early.

If you're a local to Sussex then the new Worthing Half Marathon is one you really ought to be getting in on - http://bit.ly/worthing-half-2016 it's just at the right time of year for marathon training, or indeed for half marathon running - February the 14th - you can't go wrong !!

Closed roads around Worthing with a bit of a classic flat out and back to finish - theoretically with the wind behind on the way home - what more do you want ? Enter now ! http://bit.ly/worthing-half-2016 

It's organised by the same Richard Xerri of  Richmond 13.1 fame, that regularly attracts over 3000 runners for their festival of running each year, so we know every eventuality will be covered and a great race will take place.

Here's a few more shots from the Serpentine NYD 10k and 3k - I hope you have all had a great break from work and a good holiday (if you have been able to !) 

Going along the serpentine on the way out. Bloke waving from the back is a bit optimistic I can see him

That "New Years Day morning" look

Spectating is quite good fun

The course is yours - when you're in the lead by so far

Checking your clubmates form for him

Don't enter the race, don't wear a number or have a chip, but run in videoing it on your phone anyway to get your time off the clock. Why not !?! meanwhile 344 was having none of it !

Powerful High5 almost took his arm off

Flag giver forgot to let go....

Compete to the last yard

GOT TO BEAT MUM ! and he did in fine style...

Mark is fit and ready for another years timekeeping

past the fountains and up to the first lap

oh dear, he jump too high !

SMILE dammit !

Ealing Eagles flew about the course in quite large numbers ! excellent show

Good team outing for the fist of the year

Double thumbs up and back to the finish

This is how you will feel if you kept your NYD fitness regime going...

Have a good week and look forwards to seeing you at Denbies 10, or indeed at the Surrey Schools XC champs in two weeks time... we're going to be planning in the rest of the year over the next two weeks - and if you're an event organiser and have not got in touch yet for this year - then please make sure you do before we are fully booked - we are already full on seven key weekends leading up to the end of June. Don't be late !

Happy New Year for 2016

until next time

Anthony

Brutal Longmoor 2015 now live, Holly Run and the end of the year

Ah, the end of another year, spent recovering from the excesses of Christmas and preparing for the New Year.

Perhaps some Liver and  a Nice Chianti to see in the new year, or just a muzzle to stop you getting fatter ?

We were over at the Brutal Longmoor race on the Monday after the Friday before, sharing the spring weather with an exceptional bunch of individuals who felt the need for a spot of light exercise around the hills, sand and water that the training area provides.

Photos to follow at the bottom, forgive me if my captions are not up to my usual late night exhausted witticisms. On that note, in 2016 there may be less of that, I've been told in no uncertain terms to get more rest by the medical people - which means no more writing blogs late into the 1am,2am and sometimes even 3am - despite my ambition to hit the Tuesday morning email window - which seems to be the most popular for everyone, it might well be that these blogs get a lot simpler, or go out later.

Also my personal need to get rid of the 2 extra stone that have slowly supplanted themselves onto my hips over the past 8 years is now in critical need to be removed, which now that we have made some quite fundamental changes to our work processes in the office over the past months and invested significantly into the future - should enable me to get the time every day needed to rebuild my health.
The biggest problem is the very busy weekends in march and april - and part of our strategy to cope with that now is to turn down events, some which we have been covering for many years. This isn't an easy decision but it's the only way we can still deliver our services at the level we want to and still exist.

We also have some significant changes that will take about 2 years to implement, but we hope to start to see this being rolled out in the next few months - it will eventually effect everything on the gallery, archives, browsing, saving searches - ok it's a completely new gallery website - and it should bring things up to date from the current solution which for various reasons is looking a bit dated. It's going to take a lot of testing, but without continuously inventing and regenerating ourselves - just like DrWho does - you will eventually run out of chances.

Archives from 2015 - have been one of our major projects for this year- so if you're looking for anything from 2015 that has been archived from the current gallery - then you need to go here: https://sussexsportphotography.smugmug.com/Events/2015 and you can see yourself and your friends and get them that last minute Christmas gift.

Here's the latest and next events that are going to be on the gallery - and the links to the Holly Run and the Brutal Longmoor races that have just been put live online:

Date	Event Name	Event type	Direct Gallery Link inc. event link
13/12/2015	Holly Run	XC	http://bit.ly/Holly-Run-Gallery-2015
Mon-28/12/2015	Brutal Longmoor	XC - challenge	http://bit.ly/Brutal-Longmoor-2015-gallery
Fri-01/01/2016	Serpentine NYD 10k	10k	http://bit.ly/Serpentine-10k-Gallery-2016
Sun-17/01/2016	ETL Denbies10	10m	http://bit.ly/ETL-Denbies10-gallery-2015
Sat-23/01/2016	Brutal Women Only	10k	http://bit.ly/Brutal-Women-Only-Gallery-2016
Sun-24/01/2016	Brutal Men only	XC - challenge	http://bit.ly/Brutal-Men-Only-Gallery-2016
Sun-24/01/2016	Fred Hughes 10	10m	http://bit.ly/Fred-Hughes-10-Gallery-2016
Sun-07/02/2016	Watford Half	half marathon	http://bit.ly/Watford-Half-Gallery-2016
Sun-07/02/2016	ETL Bookham 10k	XC	http://bit.ly/Bookham-10k-Gallery-2016
Sat-13/02/2016	Brutal Bagshot	XC - challenge	http://bit.ly/Brutal-Bagshot-Gallery-2016
Sun-14/02/2016	Worthing Half Marathon	half marathon	http://bit.ly/Worthing-Half-Marathon-Gallery-2016

so as usual, here's a few photos from the last event:

wife wanted me to include this one. Not sure why, suggestions welcomed.

Sy smiling knowingly at the slimming effect of the back-light

Self immersion was the order of the day

The new Rudolph wave, technically harder to carry out than a mo-bot on the Sleiss-Gerber Difficulty Scale (NB this is not the same as the FINA degree of difficulty scale)

Flashdance or Rambo. Nobody puts either of them in a corner.

too much energy still. Go and do another lap.

Best photobomb of the day

Donkey sprints the hill

Wise man or shephard, or perhaps a bit of both ?

Best Sprint technique of the day, good arms, high knees, straight back.

four little Elves, letting their hair down after a hard year

Dads and Sons do a bit of post Christmas Bonding

Drag your friends along to the Womens only in race in January ?

There's always one friend that has to dramatise a situation

Geronimo - into the water

I think he just found the monster from the Death Star Refuse Bay

Probably will need another manicure

By not carrying a handbag you can swing your arms freely

Always make sure you have your go-pro the right way around

Make Canicross more interesting with a mono-ski trick session

That moment the puddle joke by Dawn French becomes real

Yep, your friends will love you for dragging them round

Live for the moment, take on the challenge

So that's it for this year, next year starts tomorrow at Hyde Park for the Serpentine 10k. I hope it brings you many life changing experiences that you can embrace and grow from.

Anthony, Sally, Tony and the wider SSP photography Team, Happy New Year !