A bit of downtime last weekend meant we had to go big this week, didn’t it?

And go big, we did – a Grand Prix event through the week set the tone for a couple of days filled with activity – Lakeland 50 & 100, Northumberlandia 10k trail race, Red Kite Trail Race, ParkRun and the Sunday Social… phew, best get this show on the road!

Where else can we start, other than with these three… Alex Fiddes, Claire Knox and Paul Stephenson hitting the mind-boggling distance and elevation of the Lakeland 50. Beginning their adventure just before lunchtime on Saturday morning, (Strava syncing their runs later that day as “Lunch Trail Run” – like it was no biggie), our terrific trio set out together – no doubt enthused by Alex’s determination, Claire’s boundless energy, and Paul’s terrible banter; they picked off checkpoint after checkpoint along the way – staying as a group to pick each other up as required.

Eating checkpoint grub like it was going out of fashion by the end of proceedings, they finished the whole course just under 16 hours and 45 minutes. Gargantuan efforts and hopefully gargantuan portions of ALL OF THE FOOD has and will follow over the next few days.

Giving us some exclusive words for derwentvalleyrunningclub.co.uk, we spoke to each of the three…

Claire: “It was a long way… It was windy and wet… Warm and windy… Windy and chilly… We started together and finished together… The support at the CPs was awesome; we ate like we’d never been fed in 3 days until it all got a bit much for Alex and Paul… I was eating cheese toasties cooked over an open flame. At which point I asked “what time is it in real life” reply “2.45am””

Alex: “Oooof, I don’t even know where to start! Hardest thing I’ve ever done! The ascents seemed to go on forever. Great marshals and feed stations at checkpoints. Great camaraderie running as a 3 with Claire and Paul, particularly when we were moving through the night. Genuinely couldn’t have finished it without them.”

Paul: “I’m sure Claire or Alex have a better memory of it than me, but it was a lot harder than expected, terrain wise”

Understandably wrecked, maybe asking them for something eloquent, so soon, might not have been the best timing! Either way, it’s amazing to hear they worked together and finished at 1:41am, this morning. Let’s also remember that Claire tackled, and was 2nd DVRC female on Wednesday night – remember what we said about “boundless energy”.

Legends.

Also attempting the Lakeland 100, was one of our run leaders, Susan Chambers, along with her partner Jamie. Devastatingly, they had to retire in the early hours of this morning due to injury, around 4am, with only a couple of checkpoints still to go. We’re absolutely sure Susan will be back again next year and will smash all 100 of those miles.

Hitting the trails of the brand new Northumberlandia 10k were stupendous six, above. Carys Watts leading our team home, in 52:53, with Kirsty Robson second home in 57:53, and Sue Urwin in 59:20. Thoroughly enjoyable course and setting for the 253 runners at this brand new event. Brilliant work from our ladies – full results can be found here: Northumberlandia 10k results.

Sunday brought the return of the Red Kite trail race, hosted by our friends at Derwent Valley Trail Runners. Of course we had the white and red vests out on show with our fantastic five, with Charlotte Bowes taking the matchy-matchy title after Claire Thompson went for the black socks… we’re not angry, just disappointed.

Andrew O’Malley led us home in 1:13 and a brilliant 23rd place overall, with Carys clearly taking a Knox-approach to this weekend and pulling double duty, next to finish for us, in 1:22, with Claire shrugging off criticism of the black socks to finish 3rd for us in 1:32 – Charlotte with the matching ensemble finishing 4 minutes later. Chris Morris sporting his Canary Island sun-kissed look, completed our finishers in 1:49.

Full results can be found here: Red Kite Trail Race 2023

We even had the next generation of DVRC’ers, aka the members’ offspring, hitting the course of the Red Kite Kids Trail Race… The future is bright!

ParkRun Saturday saw our members hitting the courses at Blyth Links, Chopwell Wood, Denton Dene and Gateshead. Kieran Ridley helped himself to a new course PB at Chopwell – showing that the hard work does pay off!

No weekend roundup would be complete without our favourite trek around trails of Chopwell, lesser numbers with all of these activities, but we still had our people out, pounding the paths.

What. A. Weekend.

Do not sleep on Derwent Valley Running Club.