A little later than expected but we’re back after a summer break for holidays, hospitals and a whole host of other things! ….. and just in time for SELOC’s big event of the year – the Euro City Race in Liverpool this coming Sunday 6th October which is paired with a middle distance event from DEE on Saturday to make up the Liverpool Big Weekend. Plans are coming together but I know organiser Caroline Barcham is desperately short of people to help out on Sunday so please respond to requests if you are able to help.
The biggest happening to report from the break period is that we can now count a British Champion amongst our members – the first for a long time. Alan Heron took the M85 title at the British Middle Distance Champs at Chinley Churn, near New Mills, on 15 September so many congratulations to him. It has been a long while in the making and proof that you should never give up!
Alan was also our highest placed runner at one of the other big events of the summer, the Scottish 6 Days, where he was 3rd in the M85 class. Not so many members made it to a sunnier than expected Perthshire but John Nuttall and Kath Etherden completed all 6 days along with Alan, with Kath in 13th spot overall on W65S and John taking 47th place in M70. Eric Burton paced himself carefully, doing just 3 of the days while Caroline Barcham had a mixed week with 2 retirals, 2 days of injury, but coming back for the final 2 days to limp around an Orange course. Well done to them all.
Other interesting events over the summer included an indoor event in Bradford, as part of YHOA’s Race the Castles series in August. This proved an unexpectedly tricky challenge for many unused to working in 3D, where established techniques such as thumbing the map don’t work.
The club league has progressed and the positions up to end August are on the website so I won’t repeat them other than to note that Matt Driver retains his lead though Paul Turner has closed the gap a little. Special mention to new member Chris Taylor who has come in to 5th place. Anyone wanting to mount a challenge had best get started soon as not many events left to do it in.
SELOC Successes
The fixtures list is filling up again, though Stephen Richards and John Nuttall were our only representatives at PFO’s Wilson Field event on Saturday 28th, taking 14th and 19th places respectively on the Green course. The last time these two carried the flag for SELOC was at World Masters Champs in Latvia during July. I suspect they found Accrington a little different!
Our mountain marathoners had a busier weekend at the ROC event in Scotland. Mark Seddon ran the long score course, finishing 9th overall, 5th veteran. On medium score, Steve Wilson took 5th place while Kev Latham and Sian Calow were in 60th spot but 28th vets.
Upcoming Events
SELOC’s Liverpool event dominates locally next weekend, but the following weekend SYO have the Yorkshire Champs near Barnsley then the weekend after (20 October) PFO are at Dean Clough, near Great Harwood. Saturday events from LOC (a sprint series including Newby Bridge on 12 October), MDOC (19 October at Bramhall Park) will get things going again for some but for others it will be the start of SROC’s night street score league on Wednesday 23 October that sets the juices running.
SELOC also have a Tuesday series in association with Age Concern Bolton. The next event in Queen’s Park Bolton on 1 October is probably too soon for many, but there’s another short series of 3 events in Leverhulme Park starting 29 October if anyone can make it.