All credit to the 21 Juniors who turned out for the first race of the Series for an event whose double stream-crossing remains perennially popular. Emma Briggs, having put her running head firmly on, turned in a fine performance to come home first from the ever-speedier Alex Minshull and Thomas Craig in second and third places - HOWEVER, because he answered his name too politely to be heard, Joe Brookes started off 3 minutes 30 seconds after he should have done and shot round in the very creditable time of 8 minutes 44 seconds and when the list was adjusted later in the afternoon it became clear that he would actually have won the event by a margin of 1 minute 37 seconds, so it seems fair that, while leaving the actual finishing positions as they were on the day, Joe deserves to be credited appropriately with his position and the relevant certificate is on its way to him. The moral is to SPEAK UP at the start when your name is called out !!
The three fastest times of the day were - Thomas Craig - 06.57; Alex Minshull - 07.44; Jim Topliss - 08.20. On a more serious note, for the first time in four years we managed temporarily to mislay two of our younger runners, Luke Parker and Sam Soles, who, having missed the top stile, displayed commendable pioneering spirit in continuing up and up until, halfway to the top of Lantern Pike, they decided, very sensibly, that something was amiss and it might be a good idea to stop and head down. Although we have enough parental adults on hand to mount an instant search and rescue operation and although none of our routes contains objective hazards, this occurrence was clearly not a good thing - it happened because of two elements, one supervisory and one down to the lads, both of which are rectifiable. The top stile was unmanned because of a misunderstanding about positioning - in future before all the junior races I will prepare maps of the routes on which the positions to be marshalled will be clearly identified. These will be given out to the people who are going to marshal on the day and hence any uncertainties should be removed. The two lads continued on their way towards the snow-line despite not encountering any flags or adult marshals, when in such circumstances they ought to have turned round and retraced their steps. I will sit all the Juniors down at the start of the next event (most likely in a howling storm if Glossop lives up to its reputation) and outline the principles to follow and I think it would help if, while the incident is still fresh in the Juniors'minds, parents could explain to them that in the event of not seeing any flags or marshals after two or three hundred yards they should stop, turn round and go back the way they have come until they either a) find the flags they missed and can continue or b) go back to the start.
Hopefully these two actions should eliminate the possibility of a recurrence.
Looking forward to seeing you all at Glossop.