Autumn has seen the most recent student of the Clive Short Schol of Off Road Ultrarunning graduate with flying colours. Our very own speed merchant, Dudley Roberts, has made the transition from superfast road running to complete the Jedburgh Ultramarathon in style. This run kicks off a weekend of races, even including some cani-cross events, called The Jedburgh Running Festival. Conditions were ideal on the day and Dudley flew over the finish line in a brilliant time for the 38 mile course of 6:05:30 (14th). He was understandably elated. Clive also ran and he and Dud kept each other company for most of the journey with Dud pressing ahead during the latter stages of the race. As it turned out, Clive finished a mere 43 seconds behind Dud in 6:06:13 (15th) which in a race of this length is nothing. He was also 3rd MV50. Perhaps Clive did not want to steal Duds moment of glory? We will never know but it would certainly be typical of the man. However Peter Murphy might disagree with this character judgement but that’s another Allendale Challenge tale!
The weekend prior to Clive and Dud’s big adventure, in an English valley a bit further west, Rachel Chinnery completed the Ennerdale Ultra 50k in very challenging conditions. Winds were gale force most of the time which made for very erratic running in places and horizontal rain and hail managed to wash Rachels contact lens away half way round. It turned out the course was also a bit longer than 50K this year with some rough terrain thrown in down by the river Liza just for fun! Never one to let such minor problems bother her, she was surprised to finish the run in 5:33:39 which made her third woman overall and the first woman over 40 (FV40). The Ennerdale Ultra is hosted by High Terrain Events who turned out to be very nice people indeed.
