Shining Cliff Fell Race, 14th January 2001

It was a beautiful winters morning as we made our venture down into the rougher unscenic outskirts of the Peak district. Unfortunately the further south we headed the more the weather took a turn for the worse. Nevermind being Glossopdale Harriers we are well accustomed to adapting to poor weather conditions.

We were greeted at race HQ (the pub!) with a friendly welcome by the race organiser, although with a look of shock reminiscent to Charlton Heston's on discovering a planet of talking monkeys in "Planet of the Apes" .

He appeared even more shocked on discovering we had driven there and not taken advantage of Derbyshire's world renowned fantastic public transport facilities, probably little aware that 99.99% of the public transport budget gets spent in 5% of its geographical area and unfortunately Glossop isn't quite as high on the priorities of Derbyshire County Council as certain other areas.

The race was 2 @ 3.5mile circuits of the Shining Cliff Woods around Ambergate. A very interesting course with some sharp technical descents always gave us a chance of a good race. Conditions were also quite dry underfoot except for the muddy bearpit which claimed a few casulaties judging by the colour of some of the finishers.

The race was probaly more akin to a very tough cross country as opposed to a fell race but enjoyable nonetheless. Rob finished 10th a very good time considering he had been working all the previous night. I was also pleased with my own run as for the first time in a race I had beaten the first lady in the race (although i realise this isn't always the most consistent of benchmarks) and finally my Dad (Nev) coming in with a time a few minutes quicker than he had hoped after the media attention following the Nandrolone scare at his training camp in Madeira. In fact the 2 McGraws were ordered to be routinely blood tested after the race.

Some of you may disbelieve the honesty of the last statement. However a fellow harrier Jim Ollerenshaw can vouch for my honesty as he was present as a neutral adviser at the blood testing centre. We await the blood test results with trepidation.

All in all a very enjoyable day out and definately a race I would recommend to any club member.

Neil McGraw

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