Teggs Nose Fell Race

[mr brightside]

One of the aficionados out there. I have no idea what those words mean.

A ring key is a ring ended spanner, not an open jaw, normally 12 points like a socket. A ring key is more desirable than an open ender as it will engage the nut in 12 positions as opposed to 6 with an open ender, as a nut has 6 flats on it. Stahlwille Motor are a West Germany brand who start their spanners with the best tool steel available and go from there, as West Germany are no longer a country, the company are discontinued. Modern spanners start with the cheapest steel from China and go from there. Vanadium steel alloy is hard, Molybdenum steel alloy is more forgiving and less prone to fracture; Stahlwille Motor perfected a balance between hardness and flexibility, engineers call it 'toughness'.

[Graham Breeze]

A ring key is a ring ended spanner, not an open jaw, normally 12 points like a socket. A ring key is more desirable than an open ender as it will engage the nut in 12 positions as opposed to 6 with an open ender, as a nut has 6 flats on it. Stahlwille Motor are a West Germany brand who start their spanners with the best tool steel available and go from there, as West Germany are no longer a country, the company are discontinued. Modern spanners start with the cheapest steel from China and go from there. Vanadium steel alloy is hard, Molybdenum steel alloy is more forgiving and less prone to fracture; Stahlwille Motor perfected a balance between hardness and flexibility, engineers call it 'toughness'.

It's a truism that if you buy the best tools you only buy them once.

I still have tools I used when I started work at 21 which is...well a few years ago now.

(Although I should add that my employer's paid for them.)

[Llani Boy]

My late father was a tool maker and I have got heaps of taps and dies, amongst other things which must be at least 60 years old, which I cannot bear to throw away but cannot find a home for them.

If they are of interest to you Mr B, you are welcome to have them in part exchange of that elbow bump that you have promised me!

[MattPo]

I was speaking to Mr Cardinale at another race today (that he came last in!) - Rougemont Chase, at the excellent Weeton Show. He said Teg's Nose was the hardest race he's done! He's done a few - so many that he has to gaffer tape his track suit bottoms together!

[anthonykay]

So tomorrow's Tegg's Nose fell race will be affected by what the Met Office have named "Storm Antoni". Not Anthony, or even Antony, or Antonio, or Anton, or Antoine. The only language that I know of where the name is spelled "Antoni" is Catalan. Are the Met Office trying to send a message to the Spanish government that they are about to face a storm of Catalan independence agitation?

[noel]

I thought that was weird too. Here's how UK storms are named: https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/34581210

I'd like to see a "storm Stormy McStormFace". It makes me wonder if that's already been suggested.

[mr brightside]

My late father was a tool maker and I have got heaps of taps and dies, amongst other things which must be at least 60 years old, which I cannot bear to throw away but cannot find a home for them.

If they are of interest to you Mr B, you are welcome to have them in part exchange of that elbow bump that you have promised me!

I'd be interested in any metric sizes, especially fine pitches, for example M12x1.5. Is there much in metric.

[anthonykay]

I am proud of never having made a serious route-finding blunder in a navigational fell race (although I make lots of bad micro route choices). But on today's evidence, something that is beyond my capabilities is finding my way successfully round a fully marked course.

The first problem, after less than 2 miles, followed a marshal telling us to go along the track and then turn right. A little further on, I could see two runners going past another marshal a little way up the hillside to the right. Then a path appeared, off to the right; so I went up it - and found myself on the opposite side of an electric fence from the marshal. A group of about six other runners, including Ann Marie Jones, had followed me. The problem with having to turn back the way you came is that you suddenly find yourself at the back of the group that you were previously leading; not to mention the people who have come past without taking the detour.

The second incident was in Tegg's Sinus (i.e round the back of Tegg's Nose). I was a little way behind three other runners, going along a fairly level track, wondering when we would get to the path that climbs back up to Tegg's Nose. It was when we got to the Teggsnose Reservoir dam that someone informed us that we had missed the path. Anyway, we turned up a nearby path and soon regained the correct route, with me doing my fastest ascending of the day. Near the top of the climb (back on the correct route), I was catching a silver-haired lady whom one marshal greeted as "Sally-Ann". I suddenly realised who this was: Sally-Ann Hales had been a fellow member of Cambridge University Fell Running Club in the early 1980's (and had later produced some impressive marathon performances, including a sub-2:30 at London). I then introduced myself as I passed her.

I finished in 86:31, with the winner taking 59 minutes; apparently a leading group had also taken the detour via Teggsnose Reservoir dam. I got a prize for first M65; I may well have also been last M65. I was a long way behind Ann Marie Jones, who has just graduated to W70, but I managed to stay ahead of Sally-Ann, maybe helped by the soles falling off her Walshes in the latter stages of the race (as happened to me at Scafell Pike last year). There were only 85 runners; maybe Storm Antoni had put off some potential competitors. As it turned out, the main effect that the storm had was on the ground conditions, although this may be the only race that I have run where the worst mud was in the Race HQ field.

[anthonykay]

The results have now been uploaded, and it turns out that I wasn't the last M65 finisher (but I was second-last). No older men were ahead of me, but as mentioned above, there was one older woman ahead of me.

[anthonykay]

Since there has been a little discussion of prizes on another race thread, I thought I should mention what the prizes were at Tegg's Nose. There was a table with an assortment of booze; unlike Llani Boy, I am not a beer aficionado, so I made a rather random choice of Jennings Cumberland Ale, which turned out to be rather pleasant. But all prize-winners also got a Decathlon running T-shirt; mine was size 2XL, so I have given it away on Freecycle. I am presuming that the RO (Des Gibbons) had a load of shirts left over from some previous event, and the ones left over were in sizes that no-one wanted.