On Saturday 6th August the first long distance race of the English Fell Running Championships.
The 27km race climbs Bessy Boot and then Scafell Pike via the shelter at Esk Hause. Following a technical descent to styhead pass before climbing Great Gable, the final climb is from Honister pass to Dale Head Summit, leading to a total 6562 ft of climb. The high fells are often covered in clagg which added an extra navigational challenge, as Dane Blomquist and EUOC's Will Rigg found out. The two orienteers, who both competed at JWOC,  tried to run the route a few days before and ended up in the wrong valley resulting in some rather large taxi fares. 

The demanding race was won in a time of 2 hours 24 minutes by Ricky Lightfoot and the women's race was won by Lou Roberts in a very impressive 3 hours 26 minutes. 

SPOOK's Rhys Findlay-Robinson was 5th in a time of 2 hours 54 minutes and was-SPOOK-now-ShUOC again grandad Nic Barber finished in a time of 3 hours 19 minutes placing him 29th overall. Very good results! 

The fun definitely does not stop for ShUOC over summer! The Great Britain team travelled over to Hungary for the World Uni Championships, the team included ShUOC's William Gardner and Charlotte Ward and SPOOK members Jonny Crickmore and Kris Jones.

The first race was the sprint race, on the 31st of July. In the men's race Kris Jones had an absolutely amazing run, gaining a gold medal for GBR! Kris was 33 seconds clear of 2nd place over the 3.6km course. Willy Gardner came in 6th only 1 minute 13 seconds behind Kris and closely followed by Jonny Crickmore, who finished 12th, 17 seconds behind Will. 
Charlotte Ward finished 7th overall and was 1st finisher for GBR in the 3.3km women's race, only 44 seconds behind the leader in the highly competitive race. 

The mixed sprint relays occurred on the 2nd of August, following the long distance race the day before. The GBR team, consisting of Charlotte Ward, Megan Carter-Davies, Kris Jones and Peter Hodkinson won with a very impressive race and were almost 1 minute clear of Czech Republic team in 2nd. Charlotte Ward ran the first leg, finishing 3rd in a time of 14:21, handing over to Peter Hodkinson, who managed to gain 2 places, bringing the team into 1st. Kris Jones maintained the lead, finishing in a time of 12:46, before handing over to Megan Carter-Davies who brought home the gold for GBR. 

Finally, the 5.6km middle race with 205 meters of climb was raced on the 3rd of August. ShUOC's Willy Gardner finished 12th and was first Brit in the men's race in a time of 36:58. 

Some absolutely fantastic results from all the athletes in the British team, especially those in ShUOC and SPOOK, so much fan girling is going on right now! 

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A massive congratulations to our resident track fairy, Tom Horton, who has managed to win the EA championship 3000m steeple chase on Thursday. Tom, who has only been competing on the track for a year, missed his PB by a hairs breadth finishing in a time of 8:58.81 (0.24 of a second off his PB). 

Very well done Tom! 

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After several highly competitive selection races 12 juniors were chosen to represent Great Britain in the Junior World Orienteering Championships which took place in Switzerland between the 10th and 15th of July. 
3 of ShUOC's athlete's were selected to race. 
Dane Blomquist was chosen to race in the sprint and middle distance races, whilst Joe Woodley was to race in the long distance race and also the middle distance race.  Alice Rigby also raced in the women's long and middle distance. 

Dane was 41st over all in the men's sprint , competing in some slightly warm conditions. He was only 1 minute 26 seconds down on the winner and was the first Brit overall. The men's map is pictured below. 

On the Monday it was the turn of both Alice and Joe to race. Alice was 88th out of 145 competitor's and was 2nd Brit overall. The course was physically tough with quite a bit of climb, 6.6km for the women with 310 metres of climb whilst Joe has 8.8km with 450 metres of climb. 

For the middle distance race the athletes first had to run a qualifying race following the rest day on the Tuesday. There were 3 different courses for both the men and women's races. Dane was running M20-H2 whilst Joe ran M20-H3 and Alice ran the W20-H3. Dane had a great run and qualified for the A final! 

To round of the tough week all the athletes competed in the relays. Alice brought the 2nd ladies team home to finish in 16th overall! Dane ran the 2nd leg for the men's first team who finished 12th overall and Joe also ran 2nd leg for the men's second team who also finished 16th overall! 

After such a hard week came the highlight of the week... the banquet! After months of sobriety the athletes could finally let their hair down and this produced a few interesting stories! 

Great Britain finished 12th out of 39 competing countries. There were some brilliant results from ShUOC's members and the rest of the team. Meg Carter-Davies definitely deserves a mention for coming 4th in the Middle Distance A final and 7th in the sprint race. This is an amazing achievement on its own but these results were following surgery only 6 months prior.

Well done team GB! 
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ShUOC are proud to announce our sponsors for the next academic year.

• Bright Bike Lights 
• Compass point
• Front Runner
• High5

We are very excited to be working with these four companies as they support us in all our sporting goals and achievements.
In the near future you should be able to see their logos (shown on the right) on our lovely new kit. 

​On the 9th of July some of our lovely members travelled to the village of Sedbergh for the 3rd race in the series of the English Fell Championship races and also the 3rd race in the British series. 
The short race summited both Knott and Sickers fell in 5.6km/3.5 miles with a total of 400m/1312ft of climb. 

The women's race began at 14:30 and managed to have the better weather the day offered, but the summit's were still covered in clag. 98 women set off ranging from 18 to over 70 year old including 3 ShUOC ladies, all in the U23 category. The race was won by Victoria Wilkinson in a time of 29:05. 
Anna Hoogkamer, running for Dark Peak, came storming in in a time 34:05 and was 18th overall and 3rd U23.
Hot on her heels was Ellie Crownshaw, also running for Dark Peak in a time of 36:30 and was 34th overall and 5th U23. 
Hannah Bradley (yours truly) brought up the rear of our girls, running for Cumberland Fell Runners, in a time of 37:37 and was 50th overall and 6th U23. 

After dodging some down pours it was time for the men's race at 16:30. 
232 men raced round the same route that the women had just raced, including 3 current ShUOC members and a few of SPOOK. The men's race was won by Simon Bailey in a time of 24:58. 
Matt Elkington, running for Dark Peak, a new comer to fell running not that you could tell as he was 18th overall and 3rd U23 in a time of 26:26. 
Tom Saville, also running for Dark Peak, chasing Matt in in a time of 27:27 was 36th and 5th U23. 
Nic Barber, running for Pennine Fell Runners, was 55th in a speedy time of 28:39 and is far too old to be an U23. 

Next in the English Championship series is a long race, Borrowdale. 

On the 2nd and 3rd of July ShUOC held it's annual exotic weekend. A weekend of orienteering and fun offered up to current and prospective members to provide some entertainment during the long uni holidays and give possible ShUOC freshers a taste of Sheffield. 
This year the exotic weekend coincided with the trial British Mixed Sprint Relay Championships, which took place around the edge (the uni of freshers halls). ShUOC entered 6 teams. 

Our Steel men, iron lady (Matt Elkington, Oliver Williams and Charlotte Ward, who ran twice), came second, 40 seconds behind the winning team.
ShUOC also stole 3rd with Now Watch Me Whip, (Nathan Lawson, Nic Barber and Tamsin Moran, who ran twice). 
Dolly Mixtures - 6th - Josh Cooper, Alice Rigby, who ran twice, and Alex Moore
ShUOC reserves - 8th - Adam Wlker, Winona Shaw, Chris Owens and Rhona McMillan
 Where are the girls? - non competative but their time places 7th - James Mellor, Will Parkinson, Tom Chiu and Tom Entwistle 

Ari Hodson also got to run twice with Chris Smithard. 

ShUOC then descended on our centre of excellence of a BBQ, some football watching and finally a trip to the finest establishment Sheffield has to offer, Corp. 

On the of June ShUOC's grandad, Nic Barber, set sail in the 3 peaks yacht race. The race comprises of the 3 highest peaks in the UK, Snowdon, Scarfell Pike and Ben Nevis and teams sail in between the 3. Nic joined Martin Pound, James Jopling, Steve Broom and Muir Morton as part of the team to be sailing Moby J. Each team requires 2 runners to tackle the hills, which for Moby J was Nic and Muir.

The race begins from Barmouth with the yachts sail for 62 miles to Caernarfon. This was a bit of a slow start due to a complete lack of wind to being with but eventually the team did manage to reach Caernar here Nic and Muir the 3560ft and 24 miles up Snowdon. Nic and Muir took and were 2nd team in, 5 minutes behind the winners. 

For the next leg of the race was a 100 mile sail up the coast to Whitehaven. Moby J luckily managed to beat the tide and therefore the harbour gates and made it into the harbour. This gave Nic and Muir a good head start on some of the other teams as they set off on the 40 mile bike and run up Scarfell Pike's 3210ft. This took them and again they managed to come in 2nd, this time 30 minutes behind the winners. 

The final push was 227 sea miles up around the Mull of Kintyre and into the Sound of Jura to Corpach, just north of Fort William. Moby J had a potentially winning move by using the tide west of Jura, unfortunately the wind had other ideas ripping their mainsail leading to a surprise overnight stop on Oben. 
Then Nic and Muir were to attack the 4406ft climb of Ben Nevis, they managed the fastest time of the race up and back down the UK's highest mountain. 

Photos, reports and more can be found here http://www.threepeaksyachtrace.co.uk/ 

A huge amount of awe and congratulations has swept over Shuoc as one of our girls, Megan Ellen, went for a bit of an amazing run. Megan ran the Penine way from Edale to Heden Bridge, which amounted to 43.5 miles (yes MILES) of running. Which she completed in a time of 9 hours 51 minutes!! This included a small extra surprise up Kinder. All powered by peanut butter sandwiches and shot blocks from our sponsor Clif 

This is such an amazing achievement and just shows how physically and mentally tough Megan is, needless to say we are all very proud.

Well done Megan!!  

As another academic year has rolled around and brought with is a group of the keenest of beans in the form of Shuoc's 2016-2017 committee.
On the 4th of May Shuoc members gathered for an evening of speeches and voting followed by a large calzone washed down by large amounts of wine in the wonderful establishment that is BB's. 

 

Front: Adam Potter (Social Sec). Left to right: Dane Blomquist (Coach), Nathan Lawson (Events), Tom Entwistle (Safety Officer), Edward Lawrence (Secretary), Katrina Hemingway (Kit), Anna Hoogkamer (Fell Running Co-ord), Hannah Bradley (Web and Publicity), Alice Rigby (Treasurer), Tamsin Moran (Captain).