Pauline McAdam said...

I take exception to John Donelly's glib comments regarding Pat and me. Incidentally my daughter Myra was there too and it certainly wasn't scared it was very, angry. Yet again, as happened on the Bar Hill run, the three of us were left behind with no idea of where everyone had gone and how to get back. This time though I reckon that those who left us at the top of the crags were totally irresponsible. You wait for us when we can see fine where we have to go and then when there's the potential for getting lost, you run off and leave us. There was no problem finding the top of Donut Hill but you stood and waited for us there. We couldn't fine the way down the Crags but no-one apart from Drew showed any concern. I ran for the club in the 1990's but left the club when I kept getting left behind on the Wednesday night so called social runs and on one of these occasions was threatened by a guy who claimed to have a knife. My legs were pretty tired on Wednesday and the aim had been for an easy run to ease the stiffness. On the way along the crags, I caught my foot in a hole and fell landing on my knees which was extremely painful. But there was no-one there but Myra. Once I'd recovered we were so far behind that we had no chance of seeing where you'd all gone to get down. Even Pat who was further ahead didn't see. We were left at the top of the crags thinking that we'd have to run all the way back to the stile to get down. We eventually worked our way down to find that you'd all gone bar Drew - who was getting concerned but didn't know what to do as he was on his own. Had we been new or prospective member we wouldn't be back. As it is enjoy your club runs on Wednesday night, I'll be off running elsewhere with people who won't run off and leave me

Friday 25th August 2006 8.43pm

Graham K said...

A very fair point.

On a personal level - please accept my apologies. Folks should of waited at the top of the crags before descending.

Saturday 26th August 2006 7.22pm

Steffen said...

I agree. The question of ensuring that everyone completes an organised run safely is a serious one. This is often raised in winter as well as summer and as a club we need to find answers for that.

But this also leads to other questions. Runners are at different stages in their training regieme - some in better form on the day than others. Different runners also have different objectives for each run! For some it is simply a social run. For ohers it is part of the weekly training routine to prepare for forthcoming races. For example this was my only chance of a hill run that week and I was eager to join Westies for that but also make the most of it. So naturally the field stretches out a fair bit and sometimes it is not possible for the front of the field to wait for the people at the back. Runners need to avoid getting too cold half way through a run!

So what do we do? Do we split the group at the start of the run or half way through. Other "serious" running clubs sub-divides runners in to semi-permanent teams to ensure each runner gets maximum effect from the training. I would not go as far as that and prefer a more dynamic approach of "decide on the run".

Also, hill running is slightly different form road running in that many runners take the view that you have to be self-sufficient in the hills, even on a training run. Its part of the freedom and challenge we seek when out in the hills. This should include carrying minium body cover and perhaps even a torch (in late summer and autum), compass and map. Perhaps we should have club maps for popular runs with the route marked on it. Laminated, so they can be reused. A £1 to cover the cost would break nobodies bank and you could chose to have it or not.

Taking a compass and map on a training run could be useful practice for people like myself, who can generally be considered "compass duffers" - navigationally challenged!

As a minimum at the start of a run someone should talk runners who are unfamiliar with a given route through things using a map.

I hope we can find a compromise here as the club in its fine traddition should cater for all abilities and levels of ambition.

Yours

Monday 28th August 2006 10.25am