SRC’s finest (read, most easily persuaded) rocked up to support the inaugural running of Stampede, an orienteering-style group event that saw runners collect tokens from 23 locations spread out around Graves park. The general principle was that the furthest away tokens attracted the highest number of points, and we had 60 minutes in which to snaffle as many points as possible out of a collective 1000. We arrived bright eyed and bushy tailed, with disaster almost striking as a) Narni fell foul of the child-lock in the back of Tim’s car and b) Narni had also not brought a change of clothes to the muddiest run of the season.
We registered with great aplomb (yes, we were Stocksbridge Running Club MASSIVE, with a heavy emphasis on the massive), and went for a gentle tootle around the park. Scooting back to race HQ with 10 minutes to spare, we were treated to a comprehensive warm up and a race briefing. Tim was not very enthusiastic about squats and lunges, which bodes terrifically for his ongoing LiRF training. We’d cunningly decided to mark our proposed route out on the laminated map given, and had a vague idea about which paths we’d take. We’d collectively agreed that we were happy to scramble through brambles (more on this later) and generally be cunning about paths if required.
10.30 and we were off, absolutely storming it to our selected first marker. The race format was such that we were required to select two bonus spots at random prior to starting, each one gaining you an additional 50 extra points. Happily one of ours was the closest point to race HQ, and we basked in the knowledge that at least for 60 seconds or so, team SRC Massive were probably in pole position. With Tim providing the mapping brains, Rach providing the speed and Narni providing the general enthusiasm and glitter we were an unstoppable force. An ambitious scramble down a steep section later saw both Tim and Narni on their arses (Narni twice) with Rach galloping serenely off, but the team rallied and quickly fell into their roles. Rach collected the tokens, Narni stashed them, and Tim focused on which point we were to aim for next. We were focussed and sharp. We were unstoppable!
With Narni keeping an eye on the time we whistled back to race HQ with nearly 8 minutes in hand, only to discover that we were short a token. With each token bearing a point number but no specific location marking we were unsure as to which we’d missed, and opted sensibly to call it a day there, with penalties being incurred for each minute you were late back. 3 coffees and 3 cakes later (Narni at this point was swaddled in Tim’s dry robe having come a cropper in a stream) we found ourselves in the strong 4th, and retired in a blaze of glory.
If you like a team based challenge, a bit of a laugh, something new and supporting a local enterprise, then Stampede is the one for you.
