No DeLorean Required
Frostbite Race 3 – 1940’s Camp Ramsey
Time travel it appears is easier than I thought. You simply head out of Peterborough in a roughly south-easterly direction and you arrive in a small town called Ramsey which is located just outside of the 1930’s. A time steeped in nostalgia for when the plucky Brits out-numbered and surrounded fought for their survival. Not quite so dramatic for the Werrington Joggers but still, with numbers down, we had a bit of a job on our hands.
In these times of need you immediately look towards your senior team members for leadership and sure enough Simon Gilbey stepped forward and invented the ‘Excuses Board’ onto which he posted that he had run a rather tough Parkrun and therefore couldn’t be relied upon in any way. We all joined in and before long there was a sense of a joint lack of responsibility which made us feel much better.
The venue was actually superb, all 1940’s themed. Plenty of space indoors which begged the question as to why so many teams had pitched up outside. Not us clever WJ’s however, our base camp was inside out of the cold breeze. The course (new to Frostbite) was on paper rather benign. You run around a grass field along some gravelled tracks and out and back across farmland roads that had been concreted to a high standard. If you’d run it on a tranquil evening in June it would be rather pleasant, but this was December and Mother Nature had decided to spice things up a bit. She started by adding water which had turned the grass field into a swamp. It wasn’t the shoe removing mud of Ferry Meadows a few weeks ago, this was more a very slippery surface, very hard to find any traction at all. The next section as we ran out into the farmland was fast, good under-foot, but as we got to about mile three and turned for home Mother Nature was back with a furious head wind and it never let up. Having the finish in view from a long way off was a bonus to help keep the tempo going. All in all a hard day to run that route but I think everyone enjoyed the challenge.
The team finished 8th on the day, just 2 points ahead of Bushfield and are still 7th overall. Our 10 scoring runners were Barry Wild, Billy Slaven, Andy Keir, Malc Jacklin, Ellie Swire, Stuart Crosby, Richard Moisey, Sadie Boor, Simon Gilbey (still had it in him) and Ros Hamlyn, but as always, everyone that turns up makes a contribution to the scoreboard. Well done all.
The next race takes place on the 12th January in March.
Prior to this race I was talking to a lady who runs with another club and we were talking about Frostbite races. In her club they award a little glass trophy if you run in four or more races during the season. In her words ‘I’m not quick enough to reach the 1-star standards (I’m guessing similar to our club standards) and I’m never going to win the club champs, so this gives me something to aim for’. At the AGM we were talking of ways to get more people participating in running, perhaps this is something we could look at? Just a thought.