The Christmas Handicap took place as usual this year but with some adjustments to ensure that it was “Covid safe”.  18 brave souls battled the foul weather to embarrass themselves running the traditional 6km route round the village in fancy dress; as ever, some very questionable!  Well done to the speediest man Craig Connor and the speediest lady George Ross.  Best fancy dress prize went to Andrew Ainsworth (below).

During these strange times one of the things that we’re thankfully all still allowed to do is exercise (albeit in limited numbers and in a ‘COVID secure environment’) and Tattenhall Runners have come up with a great way to keep members motivated by organising their own fell championships as a substitute for other races.  Each month a few volunteers have devised bespoke routes around the local hills to be raced at any point during that month.  The competition started in October and, at time of writing, runners have another few days to complete January’s route which, being over 20km in length and including 600m of ascent, is one of the toughest yet.

It’s been variably, wet, cold, muddy, icy and snowy but it’s kept us entertained, having fun and out training.

Hopefully we’ll be able to resume club meetings soon but, in the meantime, keep running and keep safe.

On the 28 th June 2020 four intrepid Tattenhallers [Rob Arden, Simon Duckett, Tom leather and Alli Grundy] took on the Long Mynd Tops round. The challenge was devised by the Mercia running club in memory of one of their members, Gill Harris.

The challenge takes in 22 principal named tops in the National Trust open access area on the Mynd – a couple of the summits are just outside of the open access, a few tricky to distinguish and one just a finger post! The challenge has the essence and pays homage to “the Bob Graham” a Lakeland Classic. This, the Shropshire mini equivalent, starts and finishes in the square in Church Stretton.

The map loving members of the team, Rob Arden and Tom Leather poured over all the possible routes beforehand. Rob Arden and Alli Grundy actually reccied the middle section to work out the best lines from one summit to the next and Simon Duckett led the charge like a train knocking off all summits with ease even though the largest of the climbs were concentrated in the last third of the round.

 
The best estimate in terms of distance and ascent is around 20 miles with 5300ft. The team completed the round in 4 hours 18 minutes and unofficially it looks like that is the best ever time for a woman, by 6 minutes  – congratulations Alli!

For those who regularly walk on the mid Cheshire Sandstone Ridge, they will have noticed the surge in visitor numbers since lockdown began to ease. Unfortunately this has also come with a very noticeable increase in littering. Tattenhall Runners, whose members regularly run all around the Peckforton to Bickerton hills throughout the year, decided to do something about this. 

On Sunday morning ten members of the running club, along with some very keen children, organised themselves into two litter picking teams. One team picked litter from the Peckforton and Burwardsley hills, the other from Bickerton Hill. We filled several bin bags with the usual rubbish, including drinks bottles and food wrappers, beer bottles and cans, plus the usual dog-waste bags.  We also recovered parts of ‘disposable’ barbeques!

We hope that the effort put in by Tattenhall Running Club has helped return this stunning landscape to a little bit more like it was before lockdown.

I have been training for the last 6 months for a 100 mile ultramarathon which was due to take place at the end of May, but has now of course been cancelled. Rather than let all my hard work go to waste, I have decided to challenge myself in a slightly different, but much safer, way and run my very own Backyard Ultra. A 100 mile race is very well supported, with race marshalls, medics, checkpoints, food and drink. In training, you don’t run anywhere near that distance, so there is a real “facing the unknown” element on race day – can you actually run that far? How will your body react? Reactions can be extreme – hallucinations, vomiting – it’s all part of the fun, but it wouldn’t be sensible for me to attempt this on my own with no proper race support.

So I recently came across a fairly new kind of race called the Backyard Ultra, invented by Lazarus Lake (of Barkley Marathons fame) where runners set off on the hour to run a 4.167 mile loop. They can be as quick or slow as they like, using any remaining time of that hour to rest, eat, drink and stretch – but they must be back at the start line ready to set off again when the clock strikes the next hour, and the next, and the next…. The race is won when only one runner finishes the loop – with elite runners, this can be after 50 or even 60 hours! I didn’t expect to last that long, but I’ve been training for long distance running so I could have a good try at getting at least 50 miles. I planned out my food and rest strategy and listened to as many running podcasts on the subject as I could to get advice and ideas. It’s such a different way of completing a distance, I actually couldn’t wait to start!

I started early on Friday 15th May to make the most of daylight hours and I was really excited. I picked an out and back route down Birds Lane which is quiet and flat, and I planned to update my friends and family during the day with how I was getting on. As an added incentive, I was raising money for NHS Charities which supports NHS workers and their families – so important right now of course. It was went really well on the day, the weather was prefect – cool and quite still, and I just had a great time. A friend ran a few loops with me, and so many friends came out to clap and her as I ran past each hour. My parents even drive over from Whitchurch to cheer me!  My husband Steve crewed me, shovelling food down my neck and pushing me out the door with a filled drinks bottle on the hour. As time went on, I lost my appetite, and my ability to make decisions, so he had to be quite firm with me. I eventually called it a day after 12 loops and 50 miles.  It seemed like a good place to stop!

I’m recovering well, and hoping to do another in July – the worldwide virtual Quarantine Backyard Ultra. And I’ve raised a whopping £780 which I’m so pleased with.

This was Tattenhall Runner’s version of a team dance off. Team Latham versus Team Duckett, 19 entrants in each team, carefully allocated by Jen Chambers. Every runner in each team had to post the distance they managed to run in one hour exactly and no more! There was one week to post their best effort. The winning team had the furthest cumulative distance. This challenge really got those competitive juices going, especially since lockdown has led to the cancellation of all races. We have also been missing the banter that flows before and after races, and several club members made the most of this opportunity!

The challenge was set and all the runners really went for it. Team Latham, with the support of their inspirational leader got on with the job and posted runs early in the challenge, taking an early lead. Luckily Team Duckett had Simon’s inspirational (nagging) facebook posts to jolly them along. The challenge went down to the wire with it really not clearly which team was going to take the bragging rights at the end of the week with every metre making a difference.

The final result: Team Latham posted a cumulative distance of 227.75km, average distance per runner 12km, Team Duckett 230.9km, average distance per runner 12.2 Km. Therefore Team Duckett were the victorious team. Again it was great to see how much effort everyone put in with some incredible runs. Charlie Weaver must be mentioned running 15.49km in the hour as well as Kate Lightfoot who also went the extra mile going out and bettering her initial effort by more than 2km which made a real difference.

Again it was great to see how many Tattenhall runners got involved and it was great to really have a competitive team event.

May 2020 saw the continuation of COVID 19 lockdown, including a ban on group sports. In order to keep the club spirit alive and kicking running together virtually became more important than ever. Emma Latham came up with the great idea of seeing if the club could run the equivalent of John O’Groats to Lands End in seven days – this direction was chosen as apparently it’s all downhill! The distance required is 1607km in 7 days, and to complete it we needed to cover 230km between club members each day. 

The challenge began on Friday the 15th of May. Day one started with a bang – Hayley Cooper who was due to be running an ultra marathon which had been cancelled due to Lockdown took on the challenge with a vengeance, running over 80km. When all the other runs were added we managed 274km in the first 24h, well ahead of schedule. Day two came and it was clear the club had embraced the challenge with another huge chunk taken out of the required distance with a further 388km run in just 24hrs. We were smashing it. Lots of Tattenhall runners were pitching in, we continued to be ahead of schedule and although we had initially planned to complete the distance in seven days we reached the Lands End by Tuesday evening. But no one stopped running and we still had two days to go, so we decided to virtually run home to Cheshire and Tattenhall. This meant a further 500km in two days. Everyone continued to put in runs, and the extra 500km was completed with Jen Chambers doing the last kilometre during the weekly Tattenhall Zoom virtual drinks getting off the sofa putting the G&T down and doing a quick run round the block.

Overall we had 60 Tattenhall runners post runs, including some of the new generation. Two runners managed to run over 100km in the seven days, and three runners posted runs every day of the challenge – Grace Hart, Melanie Barker and Simon Duckett. It was great to be involved and see how engaged the whole club was across all groups – a real club effort.