Let’s kick start the XC season
Sherman cup / Davison Shield – Saturday 29th September 2012
Thankfully the warm weather seems to be over and we can concentrate on some proper running through a bit of mud, wet and cold. We gave good account of ourselves in what tends to be considered as the first fixture of the XC season, at the Farringdon relays which were put on by Sunderland Harriers earlier in the month, but the first “full distance” race this year is the Sherman Cup (for the men) and Davison Shield (for the ladies) at Temple Park in South Shields.
Fairly sure TBH taxis will be running the usual service to and from the venue, and our tent will be retrieved from hibernation and filled with warming beverages and a nice slice of cake or two for the day’s events.
This is the first of our “Harrier League” club competition with rules so complex and convoluted to ensure my total dominance, if you ever worked them out, you’d have to be killed. The 6 “actual harrier league” fixtures all have a handicap system applied to them, but the Sherman Cup/Davison Shield, and the North Eastern Championships are races without a pack system so a flat rate of 100 points is awarded if you run them. I’ll send the full points scoring system out via the Googlegroup, please don’t ask any questions as the scoring system is so finely tuned, questioning it may cause it to self destruct.
I’m assuming race times will be similar to last year, but haven’t been able to confirm it yet.
The timetable for events was;
12:15 Combined Boys & Girls under 11
12:30 Boys under 13
12:35 Girls under 13
12:50 Boys under 15
12:55 Girls under 15
13:15 Senior Men (Sherman Cup)
14:00 Junior men under 17
14:30 Senior Women & Under 17/20 Women (Davison Shield)
As this is the first fixture, we’ll pick the numbers up from race HQ and they will be at the tent for distribution.
PLEASE NOTE SPARROW MORLEY (and others) – KEEP THIS NUMBER FOR ALL THE HARRIER LEAGUE FIXTURES.
If you were a member of TBH on 8th August 2012 then you’ve probably been entered and have a number. If not and you want to run, then that’s fine but allow a little time to get registered. If you run any of the Harrier League fixtures then we ask for a £5 donation to the club coffers, which is very good value for money if you do a few of them, and brilliant if you do them all.
We won’t be able to win either the Sherman Cup or Davidson Shield as you have to have teams of 3 in the 3 age categories for the youngsters to count, and we definitely won’t manage that, but there’s no reason why we can’t give good account of ourselves, and provide a bit of food for thought for the other clubs going into the 2012/13 Harrier League.
Other XC dates for the coming season are as follows, but may be subject to change (and only the 6 HL fixtures, the Sherman cup/Davison Shield and NE Champs are used in our in-club competition).
29th September 2012 – Sherman Cup/Davison Shield – Temple Park
27th October 2012 – NEHL 1 – Cramlington
17th November 2012 – NEHL 2 – Blaydon
8th December 2012 – NE XC Champs – Hartlepool
15th December 2012 – NEHL 3 – Jarrow
25th January 2013 – Northern XC Champs – Location TBC (North West England?)
9th February 2013 – NEHL 4 – Wrekenton
23rd February 2013 – National XC Champs – Herrington Country Park (Sunderland)
2nd March 2013 – NEHL 5 – Alnwick
16th March 2013 – Masters XC Champs – Herrington
23rd March 2013 – NEHL 6 – Prudhoe
Dave Moir
Address:
Temple Park Centre, John Reid Road, South Shields, Tyne and Wear, NE34 8QN
