Saddleworth Ten Res's 2023

For once this is a write up of a race I didn't run in. Instead, I thought I'd write up Saddleworth Ten Res's as a volunteer.

We're around in some capacity on most of the Craggrunner races, usually on registration and/or results. You'll often see either/both of us out marshalling somewhere as well. We both do quite a lot of racing and like to make sure we're helping out with races, and the Craggrunner events are good fun to work on.

Saturday we were down for registration which means an early start on the Ten Res's, as we have to be there before the keenest of the early starters. We drove over the night before and parked up in the camper to avoid a 5am start. I set an alarm for 6:45 assuming (rightly) we'd hear Daz turn up at 6:30 anyway.

CP9 ready for action

7am saw the first of the registrations. A few people had stayed in their vans on site the night before and were ready and waiting. From the start things were busy. A couple of marshals had been delayed and we were short on car parking so I grabbed a hi-viz and got outside quick. Mark and I scurried up and down the car park trying to get as many cars into the available space as possible and eyeing up the dips and mud to make sure no one got stuck or grounded. Mick appeared and went up to the road to direct cars in. Jack very kindly brought me my first cup of tea of the day around 7:30. Car parking is one of the most stressful jobs, it's not always easy to ask people to budge up and there's almost always some issue with the sudden influx of people impacting on members of the public. Just one minor issue this morning (someone unrelated to the race) and we made about as good use of the space as we could.

Black Hill trig

As soon as the available space was full, Mark headed up to the road to direct remaining entrants to park along the road and I headed back to help with registration. We had plenty of people on kit check so I was helping people put their SI dibbers on and explaining how to use them. The rush of entrants slowed gradually as the 9am start time approached.

Once the 9am start was done, we had a cup of tea and got into running kit ready to flag the end of the course.  Claire, Alan and I took a bundle of flags and an SI control and headed out along the start/finish route. We took in a sign where the inbound and outbound routes diverge and started setting out flags from there to CP9. We set out CP9 last year so we knew there was a good location for it at the stile. Once it was attached (then removed and reattached as we found a better way of doing it) we dropped down the fields to the sailing club, then across the dam and out towards CP1. We weren't in a massive rush and ran/walked steadily up to the rocky riverbed, then gathered flags along the gully. As we approached CP1 we met a couple of local walkers who had intended to take part but illness had got in the way, so they were having a walk on part of the route.

Looking back down to CP1

We folded up the orienteering kites, stashed away the control boxes then climbed up to the moor top and sloshed our way through the swamp to the road crossing. Helen and Dave were there to pick us up (I'd had Turf running on my phone so Daz could see where we were) and we headed back to the cricket club.

When we got there the first finisher had just arrived and Claire and I were straight onto download & results for the 2nd finisher onwards. The first hour was fairly quiet so we managed to grab something to eat, but with 189 people setting out we were busy clipping off SI dibbers, downloading results, writing certificates and selling badges for the rest of the day. The route had been the usual slippery mud bath and I was alternating between results and first aid during the peak. Thankfully there was no injury that required any more than cleaning off and checking. Towards the end there were breaks of ten minutes or more between people coming in. Finally there were just 5 entrants still out there, light was failing and we hadn't heard anything for a while. 3 people had missed the cut off at Crowden and come back with one of the marshals. Daz started trying to contact the walkers to check they were OK. I was just heading out to the van to get running kit on to go out and check on them when they arrived, rather tired, footsore and hungry but happy to finish. The final overall time was around 10 hours 25. That's good going for 26 miles on such a tough route.

All that remained was to shut down the timing equipment and pack everything into cars and vans. Once everyone had finished eating and getting warm and headed home we cleaned up the venue and headed home ourselves. All finished by 7pm, I had the dinner on by 8:30.

Dovestone Res as the light failed sunday

Sunday was a lazy start for us, but not for Daz. He'd stepped in for the race organiser for Tod Harriers 'Red Hot Toddy' 10k, so we'd offered to take in the flags from the end of the 10 Res's. We opted for a rather longer than intended loop round Laddow Rocks and Black Hill to get some time out on the hill and ended up coming back into the cricket club with bundles of flags at 7:30pm.

Everyone seemed to have a good day on the Ten Res's, entrants and marshals alike. We had lots of really positive feedback during the afternoon and everything ran pretty smoothly. 

Next up is the 5 Trigs, another longer moorland route around the South Pennines. We ran the route the day after the event last year and it's a good one.