Dulwich Midsummer Relays 2017

52 teams of three took part in the Dulwich Runners Midsummer Relays on July 12th 2017, held for the second year in Dulwich Park. In previous years the club organised a midsummer 5k - I ran it in 2015 (see report here) - but with the park hosting a 5k parkrun every Saturday it makes sense to try something a bit different.

The start of the first leg

 This year I ran with people from work who I sometimes join for a Wednesday lunchtime run around the Tower Bridge area. We fielded two teams as 'Tooley Street Runners', each of us taking our turn at one lap of the park - just over a mile.

Tooley Street Runners

Finsbury Flyers were the winning men's trio in 14:52, and a team from London City Athletic Club won the women's competiion in 17:43. The mixed team prize was won by three Peckham parkrunners in 16:34. Full results here.

South of the Thames Cross Country Championships 2015: 7.5 miles at Somerhill

The 2015 South of the Thames Cross Country Championships took place on Saturday 19th December, hosted by Tonbridge Athletic Club in the grounds of the schools at Somerhill, outside of the town.

242 runners completed the tough 7.5 mile course, with the men's and women's races taking place together. The men's winner was Kent A.C.'s John Gilbert in 42:29. For much of the race he was neck and neck with Tonbridge's Max Nicholls, the 19-year-old Team GB junior mountain runner, but Gilbert pulled away on the last lap and Brighton and Hove's Stephen Ferroni squeezed past Nicholls on one of the final hills to take the silver ahead of Nicholls in third place.

Amy Clements (Kent AC) won the women's gold in 50:40, twenty seconds ahead of Nicole Taylor (Tonbridge AC), with Sammi Amend (Belgrave Harriers) in third. In the veterans categories Kent AC's Chris Greenwood and Cath Stibbs won the M40 and W40 medals, Tunbridge Wells Harriers' Alex Howey and Dulwich Runners' Clare Elms won the M50 and W50, with the M60 and W60 won by Michael Thompson (Tunbridge Wells Harriers) and Maggie Statham (Holland Sports AC) respectively.

In the men's team competition the big prize  - in every sense of the word  - was the Dewar Championship Shield for the six-to-score (i.e. team with the lowest combined points for their first six finishers wins, with one point for winner, 2 points for second place etc). Kent AC won by a six point margin from Tonbridge, with Belgrave Harriers in third. In the 12-to-score competition, positions were reversed with Tonbridge AC first, Kent AC second, and Brighton and Hove AC third.

Kent AC's winning men's team - Neil Phillips (8th place), Chris Greenwood (4th),  John Gilbert (1st), Ken Pike (manager/coach), Owen Hind (9th)m Ben Harding (18th) James Connor (12th).

Detail from the Dewar Challenge Shield, presented to the South of Thames Cross Country Association by whisky magnate and MP Thomas Dewar (1864-1930). Note the image of runners heading towards a gate.

The women's race was won by Dulwich Harriers, with Kent AC in second place and Belgrave Harriers in third position.

Kent AC women scorers  with their silver medals: Cath Stibbs (7th place), Amy Clements (1st) , Kate Williams (26th), Sarah Young (31st), Victoria Buck (20th), Teresa Murphy (14th).

The course

The map and the territory

The course, which had been very well laid out by Tonbridge AC, was essentially set on one side of a large hill in the grounds of Somerhill House. Built in the 17th century, the building and its estate have a rich history including a period as a World War Two prisoner of war camp and a link to the wonderful stained glass windows by Marc Chagall in the neighbouring village of Tudeley. Since the 1990s Somerhill has been the home to several independent schools.

Somerhill was painted by JMW Turner in 1811, and the hill shown in the painting was the one we ran up, down and across at the weekend, with three significant ascents on each of the three laps. The ground was soft, and fairly muddy/slippery in places. A few tumbled and most were fairly drained by the end - I know I was, coming down with a cold I considered getting round without stopping an achievement in itself.

I bet Turner didn't run up that hill nine times in an hour

Film of the race from Tonbridge Athletic Club

History

Kent AC (my club) have been doing really well in cross country in recent years,  winning the men's Surrey League and men's and women's races at last month's South of the Thames Team Race (a shorter race previously known as the South of Thames Junior race).  But the club have not won the South of Thames Championship since 1907, when the team came first in the race held at Bromley. J. Keywood won the race for Kent AC that day, followed by R.H. Backshall (Eastbourne) and J.S. Satch (Kent AC) in third place.

Kent AC's Albert Aldridge, one of the country's top distance runners of the period, won the South of the Thames in 1902, though on that occasion the club finished second to Brighton and County Harriers. The location again was Bromley - 'Mr A C Norman's park' - which as today's Norman Park Recreation Ground hosts Bromley parkrun and the running track used by Blackheath and Bromley Harriers.

See also:

South of the Thames Team Race 2015 at Polesden Lacey

Report of 2014 South of the Thames on Wimbledon Common 

Kent Vets Cross Country 2015 at Sparrows Den

The Kent Veterans Cross Country Championships took place last Saturday (5 December 2015) at Sparrows Den, West Wickham.  The Kent County Athletics Association event was hosted by Blackheath & Bromley Harriers, who are based locally. 

There were three races - men's 40 to 49, men's 50 to 59 (both run over about 6 miles) and a third, shorter race that combined the women's competition and the men's 60+champs. In total there were 313 finishers from clubs across the Kent and South London area.

start of men's 60+/women's 35+ race

Results

My club, Kent AC, won the men's V40-49 headed by Chris Greenwood who finished first by a 90+ second margin - he has won the British Masters V40 XC three years in a row, so no great surprizes there. Tunbridge Wells Harriers were in second place, followed by Medway & Maidstone AC.

The men's 50-59 race was won by Ben Reynolds (Tonbridge AC), whose club also won the team competition, ahead of Blackheath & Bromley Harriers and Tunbridge Wells Harriers.  With 'three to score' (i.e. results of first 3 for each club determining team score), and only three Kent AC finishers the team were dependent on me as third scorer - not a great omen - and we came in at a respectable fifth (out of 13).

The men's 60-69 race was won by Jeremy Carnell (Cambridge Harriers), with Blackheath & Bromley Harriers winning the team competition ahead of Cambrige Harriers and  Kent AC.

Vernon Thomas (Greenwich Tritons) was first home of the eight 70+ runners, including the only 80+ runner, Richard Pitcairn-Knowles (Sevenoaks AC), who incidentally I also came across running recently at Hilly Fields parkrun

The women's race overall was won by Clare Elms (Dulwich Runners), with Kent AC the winning club in the 35-44s. Runners up were Dulwich Runners with Blackheath and Bromley Harriers  in third place. 

Petts Wood Runners won the women's 45-54 ahead of Folkestone Running Club (2nd) and  Kent AC (3rd), though the first finisher was Maria Heslop of Paddock Wood AC  who unfortunately for them did not have the required three runners to feature in team results.

Barbara Wenman, Canterbury Harriers, won gold in the women's 55-64 and Anne Unseld (Bromley Veterans AC) in the women's 65+.

(full results here)

Winning Kent AC men's team (35-44) - Chris Greenwood, Phil Sanders, Stuart Beaney, Che Compton

Winning Kent AC women's team (35-44) - Cath Stibbs, Theresa Murphy, Victoria Buck

The course

The first part of the course was a charge into strong winds and a lap of an open field - not my favourite terrain - before heading into the woods, with a couple of fairly short uphill sections and a nice technical descent (i.e. watch your feet or fall over, or in some cases watch your feet and still fall over). Much of the woodland section is along narrow paths with limited room to pass, so runners need to pick their moments to overtake - the flat section along Woodland Way giving one such opportunity. There were only a couple of patches of serious mud, and many of the runners managed fine with trail shoes rather than spikes.

The pub

Afterwards we retired to The Swan in West Wickham for post-race refreshments and to compare medals. While some left in a worse state than they came in, I don't believe anybody did as badly as a hapless Blackheath Harrier returning from cross country here in 1896 and falling off the train at Lewisham!

Chelmsford Chronicle, 25 December 1896

Assembly League on Greenwich Olympian Way

253 runners (from 13 clubs) took part in the fourth of this season's Assembly League races, in north Greenwich on 2 July. It was a hot evening for a run along the river Thames on the Greenwich peninsula on a flat course that was about 60m short of 5k.

Kent AC athletes John Gilbert and Amy Clements finished first amongst the men and women respectively, and the club also won in both the men's A team and B team. Dulwich Runners won the women's A team, and Victoria Park Harriers the women's B team. That pretty much reflects the league placings with two races remaining - Kent AC in front for the men, Dulwich Runners for the women. Top three finishers/times:

Men

1. John Gilbert (Kent AC) - 15:11

2. Dave Morgan (Serpentine) - 15:21

3. Rob Jackaman (Cambridge Harriers) - 15:29

Women

1. Amy Clements (Kent AC) - 16:52

2. Clare Elms (Dulwich Runners) - 17:25

3. Alex Gounelas (Eton Manor) - 17:41

(full results here)

The route took us along the Olympian Way, which lets face it is as near as most of us are going to get to being Olympians. I assume the path, which runs along the riverside around the 02 arena, was so named in 2012 when the 02 was the North Greenwich Arena in the London Olympics, hosting basketball and gymnastics.

As the excellent Greenwich Peninsula History site demonstrates, this area was once known as Greenwich Marsh, and was the site of gas works and heavy industry before the arrival of the Millennium Dome (now the 02). There are still some traces left of old north Greenwich, one of the best of which is the Pilot Inn where many of the runners retired for a drink after the race.

Kent AC down by the riverside

Midsummer Running in Dulwich Park

'Why do they run away? this is a knavery of them to make me afeard'

(photo from Dulwich Runners)

Last Thursday 25th June, 150 of us did three circuits of South London's Dulwich Park taking part in Dulwich Runners' Midsummer 5k. Top three finishers for men and women were as follows (full results at Run Britain):

Men:

1. Alex Gibbins (Blackheath and Bromley AC) - 16:10

2. Phil Sanders (Kent AC) - 16:11

3. Warwick Norris (Run Dem Crew) - 16:21

Women:

1. Sorrel Walsh (Run Dem Crew) - 19:07

2. Julia Wedmore (Herne Hill Harriers) - 19.23

3. Melanie Edwards - 19:26

The race was preceded by a one mile children's event, which was all very cute but definitely cost me a place in the 5k later as the children stayed on to cheer their parents... I was running along quite happily when at the end of the second lap a child called out to the guy behind me 'Dad, there's a little boy beating you' (there was a junior runner ahead of us both). In no time at all, said Dad had moved up a gear, overtaken me and headed off in hot pursuit of his youthful rival. 

Midsummer running

'Over hill, over dale,

Through bush, through brier,

Over park, over pale,

Through flood, through fire,

I do wander everywhere,

Swifter than the moon's sphere'

It was a hot evening, and where better to be than in the green outdoors? At this time of year with the days at their longest and the sun at its height, people have celebrated midsummer revels for thousands of years with dancing and games. In his book on seasonal customs, The Stations of the Sun (1996), Ronald Hutton notes that it was once common in many parts of  Europe to light festive bonfires on Midsummer Eve (23 June). An  Elizabethan ballad  mentions that 'the nimble young men runne leapinge' over Midsummer fires. There was no fire leaping in Dulwich Park this year, but plenty of nimble men and women of various ages running around.

The 5k route was more or less the same as the regular Dulwich parkrun route, above

The drama of the Green World

Writing about A Midsummer Night's Dream and other Shakespearean comedies, the critic Northrop Frye famously wrote of the ‘drama of the Green World’, with the action moving away from the confines of 'the normal world'  to a woodland setting of rebirth and dreams where the social order is suspended and contradictions are resolved. If the characters generally have to return to the normal world afterwards, it is to a better place than when they left it as a result of their adventures (Frye, The Anatomy of Criticism, 1957).

 For me, running races - perhaps especially in parks, woods and fields - functions as a kind of Green World in a similar way. A time and space outside of everyday life when we can temporarily leave behind worries about work or the state of the world, when the things that divide human beings are set aside for a common experience of focusing solely on the immediacy of our physical bodies and the terrain we move over, as fast as we can. And if we cross the line hot and exhausted, we generally feel better for it afterwards.

'O, I am out of breath in this fond chase!'

(all quotes in italics from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream)

See previously: Running in Dulwich Park for a bit more about its history and running culture - in fact the park's origins have a connection with Shakespearean actor and theatre owner Edward Alleyn.

More running related literature:

Jack Kerouac running down a mountain

'These forms who hasten by' - runners on the Pilgrims Way, 1920s

'You just had to run' - Karl Ove Knausgaard

Morrissey - List of the Lost

Burns Night Running Thoughts

Running in the Railway Children

Running to Paradise - W B Yeats

The Sky of a Saturday Morning - John Updike

The Road is a Strange Country - Rebecca Solnit

The Runner - W H Auden

Once a Runner - John L Parker jr

Louisa May Alcott - 'A Joy to Run'

Crystal Palace Dinosaur Dash Relay

The inaugural Crystal Palace Dinosaur Dash Relay this week was a great success, with a sold out field of 82 teams of three (246 runners) taking part. The 15k relay on Wednesday 17th June, organised by Crystal Palace Fun Runners, involved each runner doing a single lap of this great London park.

An inscrutable sphinx watches the runners go past, no doubt pondering the Riddle of the Sphinx: 'What is the creature that walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon and three in the evening?'  The statue has been in the park since 1854, and is a copy of an Egyptian original now located in the Louvre in Paris.

. Starting on the terraces at the top of the sloping park, where the glass building that gave the area its name once stood, the route wound down to the bottom of the hill... and all the way back up again. Of course it included a circuit of the lake and its famous Victorian dinosaur models, hence the 'Dino Dash Relay', and indeed proceeds from the race will be donated to the preservation of these  fine creatures, one of whom was represented on the event's medal.

source: wikipedia

There was a strong presence from local clubs, in particular Striders of Croydon, Beckenham Running Club, Dulwich Runners, Orpington Road Runners and Windrush Triathlon, as well as unattached runners. Many teams entered into the Jurassic theme with dinosaur-related names, and indeed the winning team in 51:47 was Striders of Croydon Velociraptor, followed by Dulwich Runners Malosaurs (full results here). I thought the best team name though was 'I thought you said RUM in the park'.

Kev Chadwick of Dulwich Runners, with the iconic Crystal Palace TV transmitter in the background

Save Athletics at Crystal Palace: update

The run showed yet again how important Crystal Palace is to the South London running community. As discussed here before, the park's athletics stadium, outdoor track, and indoor track are all under threat under proposals from the Greater London Authority. Crystal Palace Sports Partnership, which is spearheading the campaign to save athletics at the Crystal Palace National Sports Centre, has warned that 'in July the GLA are looking to grant approval for funding which could decimate athletics in South London, despite a huge groundswell of public opinion'.  Under these plans, the outdoor running track could be saved as a community facility (though even this is not guaranteed)  with the loss of the indoor track and other facilities (despite the support of UK Athletics for retaining and improving current provision).

The use of the wider park for running events like the Dino Dash and the weekly Crystal Palace parkrun could also be compromised by longer term proposals to build on the site of the old Crystal Palace building, which burnt down in 1935 - near to the start and finish point for this week's race. Fortunately for now the latest folly, which would have entailed a Chinese developer backed by the Mayor of London taking over a third of the park, seems to have bitten the dust

Dinosaurs in the park AND a rainbow - it was like being in The Land Before Time!

'Hilly Fields Hardcore' - 23rd place - top third placing not bad for these dinosaurs

The start and finish point for the race was also the same place in the park where The Chemical Brothers 'Setting Sun' video was filmed in 1996. The race was pretty wild, but not this wild...

See also Save Crystal Palace for Athletics... and Popular Culture

Save Athletics at Crystal Palace

Running London (6): Dulwich Park

I saw in 2014 with a New Year's Day 5k Dulwich parkrun. It was wet and windy, but 172 runners decided to get cracking on their New Year resolutions early.

Parkrun has been taking place in Dulwich Park since April 2012. It is one of the smoother, faster parkruns in London, with three circuits of the park on tarmac all the way round, mostly fairly flat (runners sometimes complain about the slight gradient on part of the course, but there's certainly no hill).  Sarah Watson is currently the fastest female finisher with a time of 17:31, Thomas Payn holds the men's record with 15:01 - getting on for a minute quicker than the best time at my really hilly home run at Hilly Fields.  So yes, the course does make a difference, though I have run faster times at Hilly Fields than I managed at Dulwich Park on New Year's Day. Then again I had been up drinking and dancing into the early hours the night before.

Dulwich parkrun, New Years Day 2014

There's nearly always people running in the park, and the area boasts two local running clubs in addition to the weekly parkrun - Dulwich Park Runners, based at the Trevor Bailey Sports Club on The South Circular opposite the park and Dulwich Runners AC, who have their main club night at The Edward Alleyn Club in Burbage Road, SE24. There are also various other running events in the park - such as the annual Cystis Fibrosis Dulwich Park Fun Run (next one on May 31 2014).

Back in October, I took part in the Dulwich Runners Charity 10k, with 213 runners starting off and finishing in the park, but also taking in a section of the South Circular Road and Dulwich Village (all photos in this post except the top one from New Years Day are from that race). A PB for me, but  I strained a muscle in my thigh and ended up out of action for a month. In fact I was relieved to come away from the park on New Year's Day uninjured as on my previous parkrun there in June my vision started to blur and by the end of the day I was in Kings Hospital Accident and Emergency with a temporary loss of vision (seemingly related to damage from my contact lenses).

The park holds many happy memories for me, wandering through the Rhododendrons with my kids, seeing a great outdoor performance of Alice in Wonderland from Bubble Theatre, cycling over from Brixton the first time I stumbled across it. It has a good cafe, and just outside the various food and drink establishments of Dulwich Village. And yes it does feel a bit like a rather posh Surrey village, though sometimes this is overstated. Once I overheard a shopkeeper say 'there's a lot of outsiders in the village today'- well it is in one of the world's biggest cities and just down the road from Peckham and Brixton!

The finish in Dulwich Park for the Dulwich Runners 10k,
Sunday 6 October 2013

The park itself was opened in 1890, on former farm land and meadows that had belonged to the Dulwich Estate before they donated it to the Metropolitan Board of Works (later London County Council). The origins  and wealth of the Dulwich Estate go back to Alleyn's College of God's Gift, founded  by Edward Alleyn, the Shakespearian actor who made his money from playhouses, bear pits and brothels on the South Bank of the Thames. He set up the charity for the benefit of poor scholars, though the main beneficiaries seem to have ended up being the associated elite fee-paying schools of Dulwich College, Alleyn's School and James Allen Girls School. Oh well at least the rest of us got a park out of it to run around!  Dulwich College, once attended by the likes of Raymond Chandler, P.G. Wodehouse and more recently Chiwetel Ejiofor, is another part of the running mix in the area. It has a strong tradition of cross country running and its own running track - also used for training sessions by Dulwich Runners.

The nearby Dulwich and Sydenham Hill Woods are also popular with runners, offering a woodland trail within easy reach of inner South London (well for me a run from New Cross to the woods, round them and back again is a good 10k run).

Dulwich parkrun route - the run starts 9 am every Saturday from Queen Mary's Gate (the entrance on South Circular)

Previously in the Running London series:

Nunhead Cemetery

Hilly Fields

Southwark Park

Richmond Park

Hackney Marshes