And yes you were comparing the 2..Originally Posted by Rudolph Hooker
And yes you were comparing the 2..
Its arguable as to whether Ellenborough produced Ricky, He came through the juniors with CFR and moved clubs later.
Having said that i dont think he is the person FellJunior was referring to
Ahh he's the only runner I've heard of.
But regardless you'd expect the top 5-10 to contain Borrowdale, Pudsey, Mercia, Bingley, Dark Peak, Calder Valley, Horwich, Mourne, Eryri (and some of them more than once) (+ others I've probably forgotten) regardless of where the event was held. That was my general point, which everyone realised apart from a few trouble causers..
I was thinking of Laura Park, but don't let me deflect you from arguing your point.
The three teams that didn't pick up the medals were not the 3 best fellrunning teams on the day. They had lots of talent and very fast runners but a team consists of all 6 runners (and arguably, their team coaches/managers/captains) and all 6 have to make the correct decisions under race pressure. They were the fastest but not the best.
I don't really think that the 3 teams that missed CP1 on Leg 4 did so because they were unable to navigate sufficiently well and needed a flagged course. I think they made the wrong decisions under pressure - hadn't scrutinised the map well enough, didn't retrace their steps when the CP wasn't where they expected, etc. because they were completely focused on winning.
Relays probably put the most pressure on a runner that they will experience because in a normal race, although your performance may affect team prizes/champs position, it's basically your race - mess up and it's just you that looses out. In a relay, you mess up and everyone looses. I think this is why you see such memorable performances at the relays - like Tim on that last descent, or Tim Austin at the Relays in Hayfield a few years ago having pushed so hard that he kept running until out of view then threw up. For a punter like me, its brilliant to see such committment and the fact that the fastest runners are still human.
Its an amateur sport that we do for fun. I'm sure there'll be a bit of piss taking about the missed CPs and the like, but at the end of the day the medals don't matter as much as the taking part. If you haven't watched "Cool Runnings" you should. It has the classic line about winning a Gold Medal "If you're not good enough without it, you won't be good enough with it".
Unfair or not, locals will always have an advantage. I cant be arsed to trawl through previous years results but one occasion springs to mind. When the relays were held in the Peak District didnt Dark Peak win the mens and ladies? From what i remember the clag was down that day as well
Weren't last years courses (bar the nav) all flagged? I thought they were..
Personally I disagree.
Anyway to change the subject a bit, how well known was it that these legs were unflagged. I'd understood they would be unflagged (hence the recceing emphasis on CFR's website) but there were definitly some runners who only moments prior to setting off assumed the courses were flagged..
another subject I'll never have any direct contact with, but presumably this means that a top-top team would rather get DQ'd than go carefully/retrace and finish 7th - and all their team-mates understand this?
I'm not sure Daz. It wasn't clear for quite a while what had gone on. It must have been 10 minutes or so before word got around, in fact I told one of the
Mercia's runners that they'd been DSQ, they didn't know. Then it would be another 40 minutes run after running hard for 40 minutes. I know some will say well it's all about the finishing but you can't expect someone to head off just to complete and come 15th or whatever. I know this will get seen as a bad attitude but to end up 15th after being 1st would mean nothing. You'd be gutted anyway.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote