Grindleford Gallop

Grindleford Gallop

10^th March 2007

241 Runners

On a pleasant but cool spring morning, five keen members made the trip (courtesy of Andy) over to the eastern side of the Peak District to take part in the tenth anniversary running of this fund-raising event.

Nearly 500 people either walked or ran the undulating 21-mile course passing over varied terrain, and through some of the most attractive landscape and villages in the Peak, including Eyam, Great Longstone, Edensor and Chatsworth.

The walkers had a head start having set off anytime after

7.30am

, whereas the runners assembled for a mass start at the more civilised time of

10.00am

.  Although not a proper race as such, all the runners seem to take it seriously as they sped off across the boggy field to the first obstacle, a closed gate!  Fortunately, Andy was on hand to open the gate before it was wrecked by the hordes who hadn’t the nous to open it themselves!

Apart from this, the rest of the event passed off without further incident, and the field soon spread out up the first significant hill.  Gavin disappeared into the distance right from the start, with Steve, Andy and Paul following closely behind.  This left Nicky and I, with my friend Celia (one of

Calder

Valley

’s elite women in training for a Bob Graham Round attempt in June) to enjoy the route at a more “leisurely” pace.  The homemade soup and cake at the finish was particularly welcome.

Overall, everyone enjoyed the outing as it provided valuable training for various distance races coming up.  Gavin finished 17^th in a very credible time, but seems to have lied about his age and was categorised accordingly.  Steve and Andy have “mp” against their names in the official results which I gather either stands for “missed punch” or “muppet” ….. for having done so!

Don Bullough