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Dovedale Dash
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There's a contradiction in terms - and maybe there is no need to keep the old maunderings from the website front page - but here they are:- The website is back in its usual place. The Dash was won by Simon Bailey in 27:20. 1150 runners entered despite atrocious weather with drenching rain and strong winds. Results may be seen by following this link. Various items have been lost - see this link. There is a problem with the usual website server - wouldn't there be! So it is being hosted elsewhere temporarily. Ignore the adverts top and bottom unless you are fascinated by genealogy. Sorry about that. The photo album isn't working. Children's Race Chris Wainwright has slipped in a race, damaged his thigh and has been in hospital. He has not caught up with his emails. Ring 01335-350333 if you have queries about the children's race. It will run from the Kissing Gate on Thorpe Cloud (at the western end of the Pastures), down to the Stepping Stones and back up Lindale to the normal finish. It will start at 10:00 am, so make sure you arrive in plenty of time to sign on at the marquee. Dogs have always run in the Dash and there has never (as far as I know) been a problem. You are welcome to run with your dog as long as it doesn't cause problems. There is no prize for the first dog home. Wind The forecast is for strong winds over the weekend. Thorpe Pastures are exposed and our tent is vulnerable. The more people we have to get the tent down at about 1:30 pm the better. If you'd like to help we would be grateful. The Dash is on! The Pastures are quite dry, so parking shouldn't be too much of a problem. The course is relatively dry but muddy in the usual places. It will probably get quite slippery on the way back from Coldwall Bridge to Thorpe Mill after the first hundred runners. For those who need a postcode for their satnav, they should use DE6 2AW. Wednesday 7 October 2009 Can we remind you that it is very helpful if you bring the right money for your entry fees. If we have to give change for 1000 £5 notes then we have to lay in £1000 in coins ... and we can't do that. We're grateful for your help. There is a poster for the Dash for anyone who would like to advertise the event here. Why not print it off and pin it up in your local hostelry? This year there will be a 'mini-dash' for the under 10's, starting at 10:00 am. Contact Chris for information. The weather is good and the car park is dry. Cross your fingers for a good Dash.
Sunday 9 November 2008The Dovedale Dash Mailing list has changed. There were restrictions on the old list - particularly a limit of 50 addresses per mailing which meant it wasn't useful for quick jobs like telling people that the Dash was on (or off). I’ve transferred the list to Google Groups which is convenient for me. You'll receive a message if you were subscribed to the old list telling you of your subscription to the new list. You don't have to do anything Saturday 8 November 2008There are a few photographs on the web site - follow the link
Follow the link for the results for the first 212 runners
Monday 3 November 2008We're grateful to the Peveril of the Peak Hotel for opening up their car park on Sunday. This helped with the problems of parking cars on the field. As an experiment this year we
have produced results for the first group of 200 runners. These are still being
prepared, but a copy for the first 105 runners is available. Follow this link to
see it
Sunday 2 November 2008The Dash results are on the web site
Saturday 1 November 2008Weather forecast: East MidlandsToday:A frosty start in places, then some sunshine, but one or two mostly light showers are expected for a time. However, thickening cloud spreading northwards this afternoon will bring outbreaks of rain by evening on freshening northeasterly winds. Remaining cold. Maximum temperature 9 °C. Tonight:Remaining cloudy with further rain, and some of this will be persistent and heavy for a time. It will be less cold than recent nights with fresh northeasterly winds. Minimum temperature 5 °C. Sunday:A cloudy, misty start with rain or drizzle in places. However, this should die out during the morning to leave some bright spells for the afternoon. Perhaps becoming less cold. Maximum temperature 10 °C.
Friday 31 October 2008Maurice Talbot sent us the following information From: Maurice Talbot [maurice@nemacom.co.uk] Weather forecast: East Midlands Monday 27 October 2008This year's Dash is on Sunday 2nd November at 11:00 am. Signing on is from 9:00 on Thorpe Pastures. Things are a bit wet here at the moment and the weather forecast for next week is not brilliant. However, we've got our fingers crossed, and all the preparations are in hand. Our commentator Bob Hudson is always keen to have advance notice of interesting items like the names of people who have come from far away, youngest runner, oldest, etc. If you let me know, I'll pass any info on to Bob. We have heard from Tim Pope of Sinfin Running Club that Paul De-Biasi will be coming over from Canada to run the Dash this year as their guest. He last ran in the 5th Dash in 1958 and hasn't run it since! There was an inch of rain here on Sunday and there were flood warnings for the river Dove. The crossing at the Stepping Stones was not inviting! This morning, we looked at the Pastures where the car park is. There is a lot of surface water, but we hope it will drain away this week. In view of the wet weather, please consider car sharing - it helps if you've got lots of strong men to push if things turn out badly! Pay attention to the marshals, don't over-rev your car - it makes the wheels spin and sprays mud about, thus discouraging anyone from coming to push you. Remember that the inviting areas with no cars parked on them close to the start are quagmires! Change for £20 notes is a perennial problem. Having the correct money ready for the car park - £2 - and for entry fees - £3 - speeds things up, so we'd be grateful if you could raid the piggy bank for the right change. If you no longer wish to receive this information as an email, unsubscribe on the website. Weather forecast: East Midlands Tuesday: Cold for the time of year. Sunny spells but also showers in places, with the showers mostly in the east and with some of sleet or wet snow. Maximum temperature 8 °C. Outlook for Wednesday to Friday: Continuing cold with further sunshine and wintry showers on Wednesday and Thursday, along with overnight frosts. Somewhat less cold by Friday but still with showers in parts of the east. UK Outlook for Friday 31 Oct 2008 to Sunday 9 Nov 2008: Southern parts of the UK are likely to see cold north-easterly winds during Friday and at first during the weekend with the risk of some rain, or perhaps even some sleet on high ground. Further north the weather should have turned drier and more settled by this point with some night-frosts likely. Into the following week the settled weather should move to more southern parts, with the north gradually turning milder and windier with some rain at times. Southern parts may also see some rain later in the period, but on the whole, it is here that the best of the dry and settled weather will be. After a cold start, temperatures will recover to around normal, though with some cold frosty nights where skies remain clear. 19 June 2007 The site has been offline for a few days because the server died. I hope its now rebuilt and all working. Let me know if there are any bits still broken. We walked over Thorpe Pastures on Saturday and the area where
the parking is was dryer than we expected. There are some very boggy bits but
they can be avoided. Although it is raining at the moment (9:00 Tuesday) the
weather forecast gives it dry at least till Saturday. So, the Dash should be on
for Sunday. Ken Broadhurst, who won the first six dashes has phoned us with some clarifications of Alan Giffords notes. Alan Gifford has sent us some photos of the first Dovedale Dash
I have to plead incompetence. I thought things were quiet on the eMail front. The Dash mailbox has been out of action - incoming mail has been discarded. My apologies. It's working again now, so if you could resend any mail then I'll make sure you get a reply. The Dash is over for another year. The results are elsewhere on the website (www.dovedaledash.co.uk/html/2005Results.htm). There are still a few outstanding items which we'll clear up as soon as possible. The weather caught us on the hop because the rain forecast for Saturday arrived on Sunday and parking on the Pastures became impossible. The alternative parking at Dovedale Car Park would have been effective but for the anti-social people who double parked on the main road down to Dovedale. This meant that there was only room for single file traffic. We had to delay the start because of this and it is impossible to guess how long to allow. The rain came on really heavily and the tangle on the road cleared quicker than expected. It was clearly better to bring the start forward for the benefit of the 900 or so runners who were waiting out in the rain. We understand that a few people who had gone away to get warm and dry missed the start. Our sympathies with them - but we believed that the welfare of the majority was important. Congratulations to the winners - and to all the runners. Cyril will be sorting out the missing / mixed up prizes over the next few days. We think the runner up (Richard Brown) ended up with the prize for the second lady (Blue Haywood). We hope the recipients appreciated the spot prizes. They were in celebration of fifty years of Dash-ing. Our thanks to the donors and best wishes to the recipients. THE DASH IS ON We have just spent the evening making the final arrangements for Sunday. Is there another race in the calendar where there is so much uncertainty right up to the tape? The parking area is no worse despite the showers. The weather forecast is not too bad for Friday (showers) with light rain forecast for Saturday and Sunday. If you have any opportunities for car sharing - then please take them. The more in the car then the more who can push. Our team get weary in the end. The fewer cars on the Pastures then the more there is to eat for the sheep and cattle next week! The course is perfect - of course. The course marshal this year is Steve Delay who is keen that you all have a good experience - which means - no walls down - no runners with barbed wire scratches - no mobs of runners going the wrong way - no runners lost forever in the mud .Any problems you want to report that we might be able to fix next year, then email steve.delay@dovedaledash.co.uk We look forward to seeing you on Sunday. 31 October 2005 Whoops - I was using an old mailing list. My apologies for the spate of messages. Thorpe Pastures (where the car park is) is not looking too bad despite the rain. It is nowhere near as bad as it was last year. We are hopeful that we'll be able to park the cars in good time. The course is muddy in places - all the usual ones, and it's not likely to get any better between now and next weekend. Bad news or good news depending how you look at it. Our refreshments tent will not be allowed to provide hot drinks this year. The insurance company will not cover the provision of hot drinks and food using a naked flame - which is how water was heated in the past. So at least you can be sure that you won't be burned to death while waiting for a cup of tea. If you want a hot drink then you'll have to bring a flask (no naked flames, please). We have tried to find an alternative source of hot drinks, but the proximity to Bonfire Night means that all the possible suppliers we have tried have better things to do. We'll try and do better next year. Not a lot to say, really. It's drizzling this Saturday afternoon, but the ground is still quite dry and we can only hope that things stay dry enough to allow us to run the 50th Dash. I'll be keeping the web site up to date from now on and I'll be sending out a test email to the mailing list in the near future. If you think you are on the list and want to get off it, then unsubscribe at the location above. If you want to join the mailing list - which I use to keep people informed in situations like last year's - then subscribe above. I won't use your email address for anything else. Keep your fingers crossed for a dry end to the Autumn. Best wishes to you all from the DDD team - Andrew, Cyril, Peter, Bob and Barbara The 50th Dash that wasn't The committee of the Dovedale Dash is as
disappointed as the runners not to have been able to go ahead with this year’s
race. The only compensation is that next year’s race will still be the
fiftieth one, assuming that the rain does not defeat us again. The reason for
the cancellation is the condition of Thorpe Pastures, which are sodden, and have
been all summer really, but more especially with the 4" of rain in October.
The cancellation was decided upon at Three committee members were on hand
from 9 o’clock to explain to would be competitors the reason for the
cancellation. One of these was Aurelie Germann from the Jura in France who flew
over especially for
the race, as training for a 48 mile cross country ski race in February, the same
race once competed in by the Dovedale Dash chairman in 1989. Other runners from
afar were Peter Bond and party from The Dash committee thank the Izaak Walton Hotel which again sponsored the Dash. Thanks are due also to the following businesses which had offered spot prizes for the fiftieth running of the Dash:- Red Lion, Hognaston, Red Lion, Kniveton, The Ketch, Kniveton, Royal Oak, Wetton, The George, Alstonfield, Watts Russell, Milldale, Bluebell, Tissington, Coach and Horses, Fenny Bentley, Bentley Brook, Fenny Bentley, Dog and Partridge, Thorpe, Peveril of the Peak, Thorpe, Dovedale Garage, Thorpe and John Stubbs Sorts, Ashbourne. It is hoped that these prizes will be available next year! A runner on the day suggested a fleet of buses to ferry runners from Ashbourne. This idea fails as Ashbourne probably does not have 500 spare parking places. The bus operators might like to take runners to Thorpe, but would jib at returning them plastered in mud. Another idea was to change the date of the race. This won’t do either, because the rain can fall at any time of year enough to waterlog the Pastures, and because the farmers would not be happy to have their grass crops trampled earlier in the year. As it is they organize weeks ahead to have the grazing eaten off before the race day. The conclusion must be that the Dash works well when the field is dry, and that alternative arrangements are impractical. The only workable solution is that runners arrive on their bikes (free parking!) or by the coach load. With three races cancelled, in 1998, 2000 and 2004, it makes you wonder if there is something in this global warming. The committee would like to encourage runners to view the Dash website before they set off. This would save a lot of disappointment and wasted journeys. For those with neither internet access nor friends with access the phone numbers are 01335 350239 and 350410. The cancellation went out on local radio stations and into local newspapers. The committee apologize to all the runners who wanted to run and especially to those who arrived in hope and ignorance of the cancellation, and we all hope that next year will be a better one. 3 November 2004 28 October 2004 The Dovedale Dash committee met tonight to consider the matter
of parking. The usual parking area on Thorpe Pastures is wetter than it ever has
been in the past - wetter than the years when we had to cancel the Dash.
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Author: Andrew Wager - Last changed Tuesday February 16, 2010 19:19 |
