Taynish Run: a selfish idea?
At the last committee meeting we were trying to decide on the club fixtures for the start of 2009. This is always a tricky time of year as the weather is often quite cold, wet and windy. As the British Sprint Champs are at Stirling in April, the committee decided that it would be a good idea to have a couple of sprint events during the winter. These events take place in more urban areas and so do not suffer as much from poor weather.
Kate had proposed a social event in January – but could we take more eating after all the excesses of the festive time? I decided to offer some exercise and a social event. John (Anderson) and Rosie (McAllister) have just taken over the café at Tayvallich and it would be nice to give them some trade as well. So, the ‘EckO New Year Deflab Exercise’ was born. Visit the café website.
Near to Tayvallich is the Taynish Nature Reserve. This has a couple of paths through lovely oak woods (5km and 100m climb) and up a hill to a viewpoint (3km and 100m climb) – over Loch Sween and then west to the Sound of Jura and the islands of Jura and Scarba. Stunning! Negotiations with John and Rosie led to a meal deal of soup / sandwich / cake and tea for a bargain price from 3pm (after they had finished with the ‘normal’ public, the riff-raff, smelling sweetly, could arrive!).
Would anyone turn up? Well, the emails started to trickle in and then the floodgates opened! Contact John to find out how many they could cater for and 24 was OK – but I had 26 so said I would bring along small stools. Then at the last minute, could another 4 come?
So we had 10 kids and 20 adults (although some of these proved to be ‘big kids’) arrive at Taynish. The weather held dry and quite bright, with little wind although it was cold. The kids team assaulted the hill route, attempting to kidnap runners as they passed by. Alan ran the 5km woodland route – twice. A ladies group ran round this circuit once, another ladies group walked round the woodland circuit accompanied by colds and coughs while most others ran the hill route and the woodland circuit.
It turns out that most folk came for the coffee shop visit! But they had to take part in the exercise first! During the eats, SOL certificates were presented to Callum Hunter, Roanne Lilley and Ross Lilley. Gill Berrow, Fiona Berrow and Lynne Walker had already received their certificates. John & Rosie eventually threw us out about 4.30pm so they could go home.
So was it selfish that I wanted to make sure I had some exercise? I don’t think so as we ran in a lovely place, some people travelled to an area they did not know (and now want to map it for orienteering!), we enjoyed our social time in the café and it could become an annual event (or maybe even more often?).
Posted on 10th Jan 09
by Lynne Walker - Secretary
Refuel after run
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