Plenty of runners have been topping up their racing calendars in and amongst the madness of the regular Ivanhoe haunts.

At the Castle Rock 10K, it was a solo affair for Alastair Chambers who placed 14th in 40:55. At the Mid Cheshire 5K Mark Parker was a lone Ivanhoe, where he tested his 5K endurance putting a 16:27 on the board (earning him 228th place would you believe!). Alastair was in action again at the Belper Rugby Rover, where he ran an Ivanhoe course record, and was joined by Andy Hough; they ran 2:33:47 and 3:02:21 respectively.

We had five runners head to the Dovedale Dipper organised by Peak Running. Patrick Horn went for the 15 mile option, still plenty of distance to take in all the scenery of the trails, and completed his run in 2:58:21. The other went for the full marathon distance, where after five years of tracking times, both the male and female Ivanhoe records were broken. It was Ramzi who snatched it for the men in 5:23:41, marathon number 40 in the bag, on track for his 50 by 50 goal; and Julie Taylor, queen of the adventure, in 5:09:15. They were joined by Paul Woods (4:26:34) and James Ogilvie (5:37:27).

Staying in the Peaks, we had events where participants had us glued to social media for updates as they completed ultra marathon distances in epic fashion. It was the Peveril 33 miles for Ramzi Sidani (who picked up a fabulous bronze position) and James Ogilvie, the further he’s ever ran and the greatest elevation too, Limestone 50 miles for Richard Hampson, also his longer ever run, and 6th place finish despite the tricky self navigation leading to a couple of mis-turns, and an astonishing Millstone 100 miles for Paul Woods. Paul said he struggled with the heat of the day, even suffering with some sun stroke in the afternoon, and found taking on food hard following lunch. He described the miles between 70 & 90 as going on forever, finding running boring and just staying awake was a challenge, but Ramzi Sidani was a welcome friendly face at the final checkpoint, lifting his spirits and as the sun came down he ploughed on through the last section of the event, even saying ‘definitely’ to doing it all again (after a rest of course!).

Written by Emily Partridge - last updated on 09/10/2023