Jingle Bell Jog Startline

Marcus and his Christmas tree

It was great to see so many of us at this year’s JBJ. There was a good scattering of fairies, elves, santas
and, of course, a Christmas tree! Dan Berryman won the prize for the man who most closely guessed his
finishing time. Anna Squires won the ladies’ prize. Marcus Gaffney won the best fancy dress prize. He
managed to top last year’s outfit by donning a Christmas tree and presents!

In July 2010 James and I competed in the two day Saunders Lakeland Mountain Marathon at Sleddale near Shap in the lakes. We had long, hard day one, and were confident that we would complete day two. Foul weather, bad visibility and looking back, a stupid navigational error caused us to withdraw because we wouldn’t have made a manned checkpoint before it closed. Neither of us were happy about this and once we’d licked our wounds, we vowed to enter the 2011 event and destroy our demons.

November 2010 came along with the opening of the entries for the Saunders. We chose to do a slightly less arduous course this time, the Wansfell. Jacqui and Georgie had been enthralled by our tales of derring-do and entered as well, also in the Wansfell.

The New Year dawned and so did a training plan. I reasoned that the only way to train for an event like this was to train on similar terrain, with a rucksack. So January to March was spent getting a reasonable base fitness. Then April to the end of June every weekend was some form of off-road race. In retrospect I think I did too much and just wore myself out, resulting in my becoming anaemic. The North Devon Half was the last event before the mountain marathon and I really suffered. Basically I was knackered before we started the MM.

We traveled up the day before the MM to Chapel Stile in Langdale, a truly beautiful, wild and mountainous place. We could see from the campsite that there wouldn’t be too much flat on this one! We booked in and picked up our ‘dibber’, an electronic marker which we would use to record when we visited each control. The controls were normal orienteering ‘kites’ with an electronic box, into which we would insert our dibber. Our dibber would then record that we’d visited the control. Each pair must be completely self-contained as no outside assistance is allowed. You take just enough food to survive plus an emergency meal. There is also a kit list that you must adhere to on pain of disqualification for any omissions.

Saturday came and with it glorious weather, it was going to be hot!!. James and I made our way to the Start Point, dibbed our dibber and set off up the first of many long climbs to the first control which was a ‘ruin’. At this stage, what you mustn’t do is follow anyone because they may not be going the same way as you or may be lost! We set off at a fast walk and jog to the tarn below Pavey Ark, which we reached in good time. Time for a drink and a gel and set the compass for the next leg . In this case it was a steep climb over Pavey Ark to a small knoll to the East of the Pike of Stickle. The initial climb was a moderately hard shortcut to join the footpath which took us over the top. Then the ground became a bit easier and we made good progress across to the knoll.

The next checkpoint was a tarn a couple of kilometers to the North East, and a bonus because it was downhill all the way. By now we were starting to run out of water. Luckily there were some good, clean streams on the way to the next control described as ‘west end of crag’ a few kilometres to the east. We found that the best way to keep hydrated was to carry your mug on the outside of your rucksack and use it whenever you crossed a stream;that way your bottle could be used in between streams.

It was a long flog up to the crag, and seemed to go on forever. James and I had no intention of resting at the top, as we could already smell the finish of day one. A modest climb over the col was followed by a long steep drop down the other side. A traverse along a relatively level moor took us to the next control, a tarn. This area was a bit featureless, so it meant using a compass for the fine navigation until we found the tarn tucked in a small depression.

We had only one more checkpoint, a bridge about a kilometre from the midway camp. Then it was downhill all the way to the end. An easy run to the edge of the plateau took us to a steep slide on our backsides through the bracken down to the track and on to the bridge. A quick dib of the control and a kilometre run to the campsite. We finished day one at 14:23 in 60th place. We’d taken 5 hours and 23 minutes. We put up the tent and spent the afternoon and evening just re-hydrating, eating and generally mellowing, And a couple of beers went down well too!

Jacqui and Georgie arrived with tales of becoming a little ‘geographically embarrassed’. They had had a very long day so James and I gave them a hand to get their tent up and cook some food. Then more food, more re-hydrating and having a laugh.

Sunday dawned another cloudless day, which promised to be just as hot as day one. We packed up our gear, said goodbye to the girls and set off to the start. Today’s start was a mass start, where we just dibbed our dibber and set off. As with day one, the initial leg started with a near vertical climb to a control at a ‘knoll summit east side’. We found it easily and set off to the next checkpoint, another ‘knoll’. Then, it was another long flog over some featureless moor-land up to the next control at the ‘Tarn North East Most’. The next leg to the ‘Stream Bend’ promised to be fairly easy on the map but in reality, the ground was fairly hard.

A few kilometres slightly downhill led us to a track heading into the Langdale Valley. Then, the track descended steeply a very long way to the valley bottom. It was so steep that my knees were screaming by the time I arrived at the control.

By now my energy reserves were really low and I was feeling my bus pass! A good glug of water and an energy bar and we were off again. This time along a good flat track, across a river and up to a farm and the control at the ‘Track Junction’. A map check showed us we had one more major climb before the final descent to the finish.

At this point, I was really feeling it and had to really concentrate on keeping moving. The final ascent seemed to go on forever but the navigation was easy, so it was just a question of putting one foot in front of the other. Eventually we arrived at the control, ‘Lingmoor Tarn’. We quenched our thirst from a tiny stream flowing into the tarn and started the climb up over a small crag.

From here we could see next control, a ruin that was a kilometre or so away. Ten minutes later, we’d dibbed the control and were off to the ‘Gate’ which would be the last control proper.

We could see the finish! We started to run and made an error which cost us about 15 minutes.

We had put our maps away, resulting in us over-running a turning! An attempt to cut the corner, made the error worse, as we had to climb back up to rejoin the track.

Now we could run though! Down through the forest and across the field to the finish. Pause for a photo just before the funnel and in…

Today had been longer and a lot harder than day one. We’d done it in 6:32! We were placed 66th out of 116 pairs in our Class and 26th out of 50 pairs in the Vets Class.

The girls arrived slightly later, having walked down the Langdale Valley. They’d decided to withdraw before the climb up to Lingmoor tarn. Not that I blame them as the view of the climb is pretty formidable, particularly when you’re pressed for time, as they were. They’d started a while after us, and so had less time to cover the distance. We’d all been told there was a cut off time of 1600 hrs, when everyone must be back at the finish.

The organisers have since said that though the weather conditions had been a lot kinder this year, the actual courses themselves had been much harder this time around. Out of 593 teams starting, 208 teams had dropped out because of the combination of heat and the severity of the routes. After having done several ‘normal’ marathons over the years, I can honestly say that they do not compare with Mountain marathons. For several reasons, The feeling of achievement is much more than I had with any of the normal marathons. The scenery is to die for, much better than dreary housing estates and city centres. There is no ‘boredom factor’, sure it’s hard but no two kilometres are the same.

If you get the chance try one, you never know you may enjoy it!

Really, though, the history of the club goes back several years before that. In the mid-1970s I moved from Colchester to Frome and carried on running to keep fit. In those days, running was a lonely activity. There were no fun runners; anyone who ran did so because they were competitive. One evening I saw another runner, Mike Palfrey, and I knew then that I wasn’t the only runner in Frome. We met up again shortly after and ended up doing occasional training runs together until family circumstances meant a move to Wales.

A couple of years later, I relocated back to Frome and our paths crossed again. I was arranging a mortgage and was amazed to see that the man behind the desk was my former running partner, Mike. I asked him whether he was still running. “No,” he said, “I’ve given that up. Too old now.” By then we were in our mid-30s. I took him some running magazines and when I saw him next, found out that, inspired by the running magazines, he’d dug out his old trainers and gone for a run. From then on we regularly trained together again.

One evening Mike phoned me up and asked whether I’d noticed how many people are out running now. Well, I had noticed that. By that time, 1980, it was not unusual to see half a dozen other runners whilst I did my training runs. There was a lot of publicity about the new London Marathon and that had triggered off what became known as the “running boom”. Mike suggested that we could get these joggers together and form a club. And so the seed of the Running Club was sown.

We got together to organise the potential club, discuss what its aims were and when we should launch it. We decided that we would just get together an informal group of people who enjoyed jogging in the company of like-minded people. We decided to wait until the New Year, reckoning that we would catch people trying to stick to their New Year’s resolutions to get fit. We managed to secure a grant of £100 from the Sports Council towards expenses and Mike organised flyers. One of Mike’s most important contacts was a gentleman called Martin Rees who was manager of the Sports Centre. He allowed us to use the foyer as a meeting place for the club and gave us notice board space. We arranged for the local paper to send a photographer to record the first gathering of runners, and we also commandeered the services of Mike Rideout, a local runner who ran for Bristol and whose 10-mile time was 50:02.

Frome Running Club Launch

The evening before the due date Mike Palfrey invited me out for a drink. He sounded a little less than his usual enthusiastic self. We sat in a local pub, staring into our drinks, hardly saying a word. “Of course,” Mike said, “we could fall flat on our faces tomorrow.” I agreed that if no-one turned up then that was a distinct possibility. By the end of the evening we had decided, if my memory serves me well, that if half a dozen people turned up we would regard it as a success.

If Sunday 11th January, 1981 had been an average cold January day, then I am sure that no one would have wanted to leave the warmth of their fireside. Instead, we were amazed when nearly 40 people poured through the doors, ranging from 6 years old to parents in their forties. Completely overwhelmed by the sheer numbers, we eventually managed to get some idea of who ran at what speed and the first training run began. We had decided beforehand that, to maintain a friendly atmosphere, everyone would start at the same time, with the slower group peeling off at the first junction, and then the next group, and so on.

First Training Session

After the run, Mike Palfrey and I sat mulling over what had just happened. I’ll always remember Mike’s remark that day: “ I think we’ve got a tiger by the tail,” he said. As the runners got fitter, they ran further, with the fastest group eventually covering a 9-mile route through Rudge. After the first London Marathon, it was clear that some of the runners wanted to do more than just go out for a jog, so we sent out a questionnaire asking them what they wanted from the club.

The overwhelming response was that they wanted more training days and they wanted to run a marathon. And that’s how we started to run on Wednesday nights as well as Sunday mornings. It was obvious then that if we were to compete, we’d need to become an official club. I was doing a coaching course at the time, but very few of our members had any running experience so it was left to me and Mike to be chairman, treasurer and secretary! Our club colours were the brainchild of a local teenager, Richard Butterfield.

The club thrived for many years. At one point, we even had a junior section of 100 under 18s. Although it was maintained that the juniors were the club’s future, with them eventually joining the seniors, it just didn’t happen. By the age of 16, they had exams to contend with, work and the attractions of the opposite sex, so athletics took a back seat. Of all the juniors who passed through the club, I can only recall Pete Grist and Paul Ryman actually achieving senior success. By the late 1990s, the junior section had collapsed and the senior section was faring little better, with membership dropping to six people. By that point, Mike led a busy life and had drifted away from the club. Eventually, it got to the point when at one AGM, it was announced that we would give the club one more year; if things didn’t improve, we would close. Before the year was up a note through my door from the chairman asked me to be sure to attend the next committee meeting. It was obvious to me that that was the end.

Now here is where the next bit of fortune comes in. On the Sunday before the meeting I went for a rare run through Vallis Vale. As I approached the first bridge there was a man lifting his bicycle over the stile; it was Mike Palfrey. Mike offered to draft out a flyer and hand them out to any runners we saw on the road. In his words, “We can’t just let the club die with a whimper.”

For the next few weeks, I took flyers everywhere. As the fateful committee meeting got under way to close the club I interrupted the chairman to tell them what we’d done. “Oh, well, then,” the chairman said, “we’d better see what happens.”

We contacted some of our lapsed members asking them to turn up on the first Wednesday to swell the ranks. That evening Mike, me and the recalled members turned up and waited. And waited. No one else turned up. Before the next session I had a phone call from a woman saying that she had seen a flyer and was interested in joining us. Before long I had another phone call, then another and another. Slowly, almost painfully slowly, the club grew again. Before long, training sessions had grown from two or three to 10, then 15 and, eventually, 25 on a single night. We had turned the corner. In 1982, I had a brief slot on local radio to coincide with the club’s 21st birthday. Did I attract a horde of new members? No! I had just one phone call as a result of that appeal. That call was from Susan White, but considering the amount of work she put into the club I count my broadcast as a success. By this time, everyone had a website . . . except us. As luck would have it, I worked with a computer whizz-kid and with his help we managed to construct a basic website.

It is a true saying that nothing succeeds like success. The club has kept growing steadily since then. New members join us after seeing newspaper reports, our website, or groups which were obviously organised and they wanted to join in. But attracting new members is only half of the battle. It is more important that we keep them, and that is where the friendliness of the club comes into its own. Anyone new turning up must feel very apprehensive, not knowing if we are an elite athletic club or just a group of joggers, so it is important to welcome people, talk to them and make them feel part of the club from their very first night.

Call it luck, fate or divine intervention, our club came within a hair’s breadth of never existing. If I hadn’t met Mike Palfrey and then bumped into him again years later, if the weather on that winter Sunday had been torrential rain instead of sunshine, if Mike and I hadn’t decided to take our exercise in Vallis Vale that day, who knows. With all the people in the club who are willing to take on jobs, all those who welcome new members, all those who contribute towards the friendliness of the club, then the story of Frome Running Club will run and run.

Alan Berry