Category Archives: Race Reports

Oct 5 2011

It’s autumn – back to racing..

Al legging down into Kentmere on this weekends Open5 Race.

First Open 5 Adventure Race of the season, on Sunday up in the Lake District and a good result in a strong field – 1st Vet and 3rd overall.

This was very much a ‘last minute’ entry, as I’ve not been running this year.  I managed to break (then fix) the bike a couple of times which cost a few minutes on the riding stage, but the run went very well.  There’s some damn good biking around Kentmere and Stavley, so a great fun event despite the weather!

It definitely made up for last weekend at the National MBO race up in Newcastle, where I bust the rear mech off my bike 3 miles from the finish and had to run the last stretch home!  More action this weekend with the final race of the National MBO score league just up the road near Brimham Rocks, so we’ll see how that goes..

Apr 18 2011

Jon Morgan London Marathon – New World Record!

Jonny after 25 miles in the london Marathon yesterday

In true Jonny style – another fine and excellently ridiculous athletic achievement, involving no proper training. Jonny entered the Guiness Book of Records yesterday – for being the fastest runner ever to comlete the London Marathon dressed as a cartoon character!

With two road runs and a new pair of trainers as ‘preparation’, he managed a 2.46.56 marathon dressed as Fred Flintstone – raising £1600 for charity in the process.  Brilliant – and completely bonkers..

Nov 9 2010

Ups and Downs at the Open5

Al taking the big berms down Hully Gully at Gisburn Forest

Bike Stage - Al taking the big berms down Hully Gully at Gisburn

A mixed result at the first of the Open5 Adventure Race Series this weekend – my riding buddy Giles a I headed over to Slaidburn early Sunday morning to a glorious day, both entered in the Male Solo category.  It was his first go at this kind of race, so a good day for it and he had an enjoyable learning curve finishing well up in the field.

Having done a couple of these before however, I was optimistically out to try and win.  A lot of the bike stage was spent tooing and froing with mountain bike orienteering specialist Andy Conn, trying to remain in contention as he’s very strong on the bike.  By the transition Andy had pulled a couple of minutes out, but it was now time to start running so the tables were turning..

It seemed the only option available was to give it everything, so I finally chased down Andy then took in an extra climb to pick up two more checkpoints (the last half  hour was pretty grim!) and at the end of the run I’d managed to pull a 16 point gap over the rest of the field.  However, at the finish it turned out one of my checkpoints hadn’t registered on the electronic timing system (cause unknown, but probably my own fault!) so I finished up second – boo hoo.  No matter, it was a grand day out and I had everyone licked, so happy with that!

Nov 4 2010

Jonny Wins UK Ultrarunning Championships

Jonny Morgan - 2010 Uk Ultrarunning Champion

Jonny Morgan - 2010 Uk Ultrarunning Champion

We’ve been busy splashing around in the mud at Langdale and the Ian Hodgson Relays amongst other things since finishing the summer season – so a quick roundup of the latest autumn running action:

Big news is Jonny Morgan winning the 2010 Uk Ultrarunning Championships, with outright wins at the Tour of Bradwell, Pumlumon and Calderdale this year and a close second in the Lakes 50, which was enough to top the overall points series - a great result from the Morganator!

Last weekend Jonny and I were also down in Dartmoor doing the elite course at the Original Mountain Marathon - that ever popular two day suffer fest…  We finished up 3rd after 2 days and 70miles racing in endless bogs and cloud – so happy with the result.

Time for a bit of R+R now – Jonny’s off to Turkey climbing for a couple of weeks (travelling all the way by train – very green) and I’m resting up for the first round of the Open5 Adventure Race series this coming weekend.  I’ve got to finish building the bike back up first though – having finally killed the old frame in Wales a couple of weeks ago, I’ve found a suitable replacement that’s very black, very carbon and very light…

Sep 7 2010

Back running again..

Random French running prizes - pair of socks anyone?!

Finally got off the bike a couple of weeks ago and put the trainers back on to start preparing for the OMM, so i’ve been doing a bit of racing to kick the legs back into gear.

First off was the Husky Trail Guillestrois down in the Queyras, with 43km and a lot of climb - so a suitably painful outing. I wasn’t feeling too good but nailed a few folk on the final 1500m descent and managed 3rd Vet, so pretty good.

After a week of stiff legs it was off over to Macon last weekend for the Trail Haute Clunysois - at 58km quite a long affair.  Setting off feeling good, I ended up it the lead for a while before being caught, then managed to get off route avoiding a pair of horses and lost 10 minutes.  Now down in 3rd, catching up the 2nd and then the leader again by the final feed station took it’s toll somewhat, so I ended up 2nd - but well pleased with that.  The OMM is down on Dartmoor this year and I’m running with Jonny Morgan again, who’s on great form this year, so all to play for.

Jul 12 2010

MB Race…

Al on the first climb - 7.30am and it's hot already..

Out on the bike this weekend for spot of long distance racing – the MB Race down at Megeve to be precise.  At 140km and 6000m climb, this new race was planned to be the hardest single day mountain bike race anywhere – though with 50k and 100k options too.

I only found out about it a couple of week ago, so put an entry in and started checking out a few of the descents and riding bits of the course – hardly ideal preparation for something so big, but 2 weeks training is better than nothing!

It was a very hot day and as I don’t know much about this game I’d decided on a complete ’survivalist’ strategy – ie take it steady, keep spinning low gears, not breaking myself or the bike and just wait for other people to start blowing up.  This was all  going pretty well and the plan was definitely starting to work, when they stopped the race at 2pm due to a huge thunderstorm brewing up – I got to Cote 2000, 85k and 4000m covered and finished in 45th place. 

600 riders started, but amazingly just one guy, Fred Frech,  got through ahead of all the cutoffs and managed to finish the full 140km in 7.46hr to become an instant legend!

May 26 2010

Scottish Island Peaks Race 2010

Jonny and I have just spent a great weekend competing in the annual Scottish Island Peaks Race on the yacht Playing FT$E - sailed by Jonathan Anderson, Bill Fowler and Stewart.  For the uninitiated this is an annual sailing and running race starting in Oban on the West Coast of Scotland: teams sail to Mull, Jura and Arran and on each island two competitors have to run up the highest peak (that’s what we were doing) – 160miles of sailing and 60 miles of running in all.

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In the end we  had to retire from the sailing side of the competition on saturday night, due to a lack of wind (having  rowed a 13 ton boat for several hours!) but  finished well up in the King of the Bens running competition.  This is a great race and a total adventure, so we’re keen to go again next year with hopefully more wind.

Feb 17 2010

Tour Du Grand Veymont 2010

Nina Silitch showing off the new Chamonix Ski Alpinisme (womens!) team colours

Been taking it easy this week (ie no huge training sessions after work!) ready for the Tour du Grand Veymont down in the Vercors – which was this years French National Championship Individual Race, so a very strong field.  We had a record turnout of Brits for this one – 6 of us in all.  Unfortunately we were on the alternative course due to the high avalanche risk, but still a great race.

Arreche Beaufort dominated the mens race (no surprises there then!) taking 4 out of the first 5 places – William Bon Mardion coming home first.  In the womens race Laetitia Roux won by a good margin as expected.

How did we fare? – Well, Carron lead the way with an excellent 18th place, then Ben Bardsley and I came in somewhere further down in 55th and 47th respectively – but due to advancing years, that put me as 6th Veteran – so well pleased with that.  Es Tressider came in 88th and Simon ‘Nobby’ Naylor 122nd – Cath Naylor was doing really well till the top of the 2nd climb, when she had a brand new binding break - so unfortunately had to bail.

The rest of our group from the newly formed Ski Alpinisme section of the Chamonix Club des Sports did well too, with Nuno 38th in the mens race and Nina, Lyndsey and Julie coming 8th, 11th and 13th respectively in the womens race.

Feb 10 2010

TSF Millet 2010

Final climb on day two of the TSF Millet 2010

Another relaxing weekend – not…  After heavy snowfall on Friday, we were racing on alternative courses at this weekends TSF Millet.  Saturday began with a bit of a disaster, as we found ourselves boxed in at the start and ended up right near the back – the rest of the race being spent overtaking people and battling the weather, which was pretty snowy.  Carron was much stronger than me, so quite a bit of towing going on too! 

Sunday the weather was better and we ended up in about the right place at the start, so things went more smoothly.  We finished 30th overall, so no great result, but a great weekend.
Quite a few technical problems with kit on both days – ie crampons that wouldn’t go on and skis that kept coming off! -  so that should keep us busy till next weekends Tour du Grand Veymont down in the Vercors.

Jan 28 2010

Night Orienteering – back to the old skool..

Night O - running round in circles in the dark..

Just home in the Uk for a few days family time, so squeezed in a local night orienteering event in yesterday evening at Adel woods in north Leeds -  I’ve been doing a few local league events this winter after a 20 year break from the sport.

Definitely not as quick anymore on the short races, but technique counts for everything in this sport - so been doing Ok with a close second in the first race, then 3 wins in the others.  Last night was probably the best result,  coming in 7 minutes clear – but there’s 6 races to count in the series and I’ve only done 4 - ie need to get more organised next winter!