Ali Nash reports…
The Striders teams of ‘Golden Boots’ (Ali Nash and Stewart Spink) and ‘Saltaire Striders Vets’ (Jen Willingham, Jack Verity, Simon Frazer and Jeremy Wright), despite a short (but hilarious) delay to slim down Jezza’s ‘overnight bag’ and a Chinese SatNav issue, were whisked off to the North York Moors National Park in Spinky’s fun-bus for the inaugural Berghaus Trail Chase.
The runners for the three routes – Black (33 & 21km), red (25.3 & 17.4km) and blue (16.6 & 10.1km) were ferried from the event HQ to the respective start points by bus, our start (red) being Duncombe Park in Helmsley. Following red flags, the course was a very testing climb up onto Helmsley Moor, with a brief respite dropping into Bilsdale valley before a stiff climb onto and across the rough tracks of Bilsdale West Moor into a stiff headwind. At this point, imagine Mordor with heather…..dark thoughts.…very dark thoughts. Fortunately the finish was down a really massive hill into the camp site at ChopGate.
All being seasoned campers (?!) the tents were pitched in little more than a couple of hours…. then dragging our drained carcasses the 100 yards to join runners from the other two courses at the village hall in time for dinner and hydration. By this time, Jack was planning retiring from competitive running, Spinky was mostly a yellowish hue, Jeremy was nursing a monster bruise from shoulder charging Bilsdale Moor, Jen was ‘layering’ for an arctic winter, whilst Frazer was dishing out cherry hydration and Ali was high on painkillers (following a car accident on Friday night…)
After Day 1 – individual
Ali Nash 2:16:00 2nd
Si Frazer 2:25:05 4th
Jez Wright 2:32:29 8th
Jack Verity 2:32:56 9th
Stewart Spink 2:40:01 11th
Jen Willingham 2:51:37 16th
After Day 1 – teams
Golden Boots (male pairs) 1st
Saltaire Striders Vets (team of 4) 1st
After a power breakfast of fried egg butties at 6.15am, the staggered start time for day 2 was 8am, with runners set off in order of arrival on day 1. The route started straight back up the massive hill which was the finish for day 1, and Jack’s premonition of a ‘slippery fried egg butty re-appearing by the summit’ was very nearly borne out… Another tough route into the wind took us across Snilesworth Moor and the peak of Black Hambleton before dropping to the event HQ and finish at Osmotherley. Unfortunately a malevolent gamekeeper had removed about 2 miles of route markers, resulting in Jeremy and 3 other runners ending up (after 18 miles of freestyling through bracken and forests) some 20 minutes (by car….) away from the finish….arriving back just in time for the prizes.
After day 2 – individual
Ali Nash 3:57:29 2nd male 3rd overall
Si Frazer 4:19:58 3rd male 4th overall
Jack Verity 4:44:15 5th male 6th overall
Stewart Spink 4:56:42 9th male 13th overall
Jen Willingham DNF – TIMING ERROR, THOUGHT TO BE 3RD LADY (TO BE CONFIRMED)
Jez Wright DNF – BUT DID MORE MILES THAN ANYONE ELSE.FACT.
After Day 2 – teams
Golden Boots (male pairs) 1st
Saltaire Striders Vets (team of 4) ONLY 2 FINISHERS RECORDED…..
A brilliant weekend of running and camaraderie, some great memories and a Striders prize haul to come home with! Bring on next year’s race!