#dukeries

[hypnosissheff]

Thoresby Hall hotel Nottinghamshire.

These pictures are taken from Thoresby park next door. The hall was bought by the coal board in 1980 to protect them from coal mining subsidence claims, they didn’t coal mine under the house in the end and sold onto a developer. This was eventually bought by the Warner hotel chain who turned it into a hotel. I understand the family built a new house on the other side of the lake, removed all the…

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[hypnosissheff]

Rufford park Photograph

I love Rufford Park.  The house is now no longer used, but it looks as though it was very grand.   There is a lake you can walk around, with the most friendly wild life I have ever come across.  You can also click onto my flicker picture at the bottom and see the full selection of pictures I took that day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rufford_Abbey All the best Tim Rufford park gates Rufford…

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[hypnosissheff]

Thoresby Hall Photograph

This is a selection of pictures of Thoresby Hall.   Thoresby Hall is now a Warner Hotel, so you can get inside if you go there on holiday.  I am on one of the public rights of way around the estate.  I am told I went inside the hall when I was child.  There are some great estates in the Dukeries around Worksop. Thoresby Hall Thoresby Hall Thoresby Hall All the best Tim  

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[cretanequestrian]

Urgent pledge for the University of Nottingham RDA group

Urgent pledge for the University of Nottingham RDA group

Image from http://www.flickr.com. Attributes to Lil Shepherd. Hi! It is my honour to have been chosen to coordinate Jumpstart, the first platform that raises awareness about the student-run projects of the University of Nottingham, which are at the core of our University’s engagement in the local communities in all three countries where UoN has campuses (United Kingdom, Malaysia, China). It was…

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[runningtheline]

U is for ... ultramarathon

Let’s begin with the basics. To qualify as an ‘ultra’ a race has to be further than a traditional marathon (26.2 miles) with the most common distances for single-stage races being 31 miles (50K), 50 miles, 62 miles (100K) and (gulp) 100 miles.

According to an article published by Runner’s World, the number of ultramarathons has doubled in the last decade. The growth in endurance running is even more impressive when you take into consideration the total number of races, as opposed to events. Using this measure there were more than 1,200 ultramarathon races in 2014, which is more than three times the amount staged in 2004.

Alongside this growth, there is an apparent heightening in the extremes and scale of challenge that individuals (of let’s be honest, questionable sanity) subject themselves to. For example, there’s the Four Desert Series, which as the name suggests, entails racing 250K in four separate stages across the Atacama, Sahara and Gobi deserts and Antarctica. Another desert race, the Marathon des Sables – billed as the ‘toughest footrace on earth’ - involves an exhausting multi-stage 243K across the formidable Saharan desert. Taking things up a few notches is the 3100 Transcendental Race – the world’s longest certified running event – which has entrants averaging 75 miles a day for six to eight weeks.

My solitary foray into ultramarathon running took place in May 2014, completing the Dukeries 40-miler, which was advertised as a gentle introduction to ultras. The event started in the heart of Sherwood Forest, where participants traverse (poorly signposted) footpaths and forest trails, taking in Cresswell Crags, the Welbeck Estate, and Clumber Park. I knew I was in trouble when everyone else demonstrated a steely, hardened look, as well as being equipped with all the appropriate trappings of experienced endurance runners. Put another way, there was only one entrant who turned up that morning in road running trainers and an oversized rucksack, complete with Camelpak sloshing around, who then spent nine gruelling hours incorporating a combination of running, walking, hobbling and crawling to reach the much anticipated finish line.

I can still vividly remember the excruciating pain in my legs and battered feet that evening, which left my body contorted on the sofa, unable to move or get comfortable. Unsurprisingly it isn’t an experience that I’ve been relishing to replicate. Judging by the seemingly endless self-congratulation and bragging that goes on amongst the ultramarathon community on social media, I’m probably in a minority of one that hasn’t gone onto test themselves with longer distances, tougher terrains or more extreme climates. But then to me this kind of endurance running feels kind of pointless, as well as being an incredibly isolating experience. There aren’t the crowds of motivational well-wishers that you encounter at city marathons, nor the regularity of marshals to ensure you are heading in the correct direction. Moreover at the finish of the Dukeries there was just a couple of volunteers, and a small crowd of fellow finishers. Frustratingly, the promise of a sports massage failed to transpire as the person providing the service had already upped and left. It wasn’t quite the scene of wild jubilation that I’d been visualising to help get me round.

Moving onto the rather more mundane … Day #22 of Juneathon consisted of my usual 6.3 mile run-commute home. Pleasingly it was timed to perfection as within minutes of closing the front door the heavens opened.    

[urbannewsninja]

SLIDESHOW: Dukeries Rally is a dusty spectacular in the local forests

This years 54th Rainworth Skoda Dukeries Rally based around Sherwood Forest turned the 44 miles and 10 forest stages into dusty conditions you would see on a World Rally Championship in Greece for the 120 car entry that took part last Saturday, writes …

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