Student Bashing

It's clear looking at past results that 14ac is long overdue a victory over the uni - could Leeds be the time?

They managed to scrape a victory in Manchester with some help from America apparently. I think we will be a lot stronger - I for one am about 1000% fitter than in Manchester, and I believe Machine Mks 1 and 2 have been training hard. Greenleaf and gas man can always be relied on also. Add into the mixture some older faces and we could be onto a winner?

Then there's the beer racing, where we should be aiming to wipe the floor with those peasky lay-abouts - trials should be a necessity to determine the crack squadron to neck those pints!

So if your running training is falling by the wayside, make sure you pick up a pint instead...

XMAS Meal

Dear all,

I have been asked to forward the following message from this year's social secs James and Vicky:

We would like to invite all past members of NUAC to this years xmas meal, to be held at the very swanky Park Plaza Nottingham.
This year we have a very special guest speaker in top GB athlete and Great South Run winner Jo Pavey.
There will also be a raffle courtesy of Gatorade who are sponsoring the event.
A fabulous 3 course meal with wine will be provided and a DJ to help you dance the night away.
Dress code is, of course, black tie, and the all important date is Tuesday 12th December at 7.30pm. Tickets are £35.
Should be a night to remember, hope you can join us!

James Cross & Vicky Morton

Right then, I shall probably head down, sounds superb to me.
I'd say replies by email or on the messageboard would be best, I can get James phone number if anyone needs it.

Hope to see you in Leeds, and then in Nottingham!

Leon

The IRONMAN

In case you didn't know, 6 of us have decided to attempt an Ironman, pencilled in for 2010! There is a lot of training to be done for Steve, Andy G, Martin G, Matt, Leon and Rich, and the first cycle expedition is later in November, we'll be looking to use this blog to let you know how it's all going - should be very interesting given we all have different strengths!

Top 5 tough cross country courses

What do you think?

1. Allestree Park, Derby
2. Parliament Hill
3. Colwick Woods
4. Temple Newsham, Leeds
5. Heaton Park, Manchester

Manchester 2006

Another season and another, rather large and boisterous intake of 14ac graduates. Should be a lot of fun! For the first time there would be true 14 representation (and more importantly lash) in Mancunia.
The platoon were rounded up by email, which may come as something of a shock to the older FAC’ers when it comes to organising Leeds, but hey, pigeons have feelings too.
There were a lot of people heading to Manchester, apparently not to see if two machines in one team would be overload, but to see some bunch of overpaid bottlers represent the country.
We didn’t miss much.
However, following the recent trend of ‘If it isn’t broke try to make it more appealing for track athletes’ there was, once more, a course change. In this case a change of venue to the uni athletics ground, where there is a shiny new pavilion. Which must be very nice for the footballers, but as far as yours truly is concerned, is not needed for the true xc athlete.
So we were subject to 6 legs (at least they hadn’t shortened it, if anything it was longer) of dull playing field, enlivened only by the carcophony of the M60 and a couple of tight corners. Luckily Andy and Rich stood half way round to wake me up.
Ah, the race. Well we were a bit delayed by all the soccer swathes, so a few last minutes phone calls put the teams in place. One mixed, with the foolhardy or fantastic plan of putting the 3 girls first, leaving the boys with something to chase. And one, pristine ‘A’ team hoping to put a marker down. Or so it was hoped.
The Uni though, as ever had a couple of rabbits to pull from the bag, commencing with a Whippet, who had a good battle with Machine Mk1, who was smoking with disgust at the end of his run, but soon cooled down, and was clearly the fastest in the 14 colours. Following on from Rob came Rich Davies, almost alone in not talking down his chances. And with good reason, although his hidden watch tactic certainly helped keep the suspense up. Then came Greenleaf, Machine Mk2, Hodson and Baptiste, all in various states of rustiness or so they would have you believe. If those four had their way, 14ac would be scaled down to 13 or 12 ac! The first three all ran very reasonably, especially Machine Mk2, who can’t be trusted to sum up his own fitness under any circumstances! (Sorry Matt!) On the last leg, I endeavoured to finish with the usual one second margin over Davies, (and the ghost of Gaunt) but failed miserably due to genuine shoddy fitness. Instead it was left to Vista XP, sorry Steve, to assume this mantle, finishing 1 second ahead of Hannah, clearly relishing her return to competitive action. The mixed team were clearly delighted not to finish last, given that along with interesting courses, the modern establishment has found fit to render the mixed race obsolete by not entering mixed teams. Myanna, Lucie, Josh and Rob again certainly showed them that 14ac do not give up easily.
Sadly the University strolled away with the honours, though for 14ac it is early doors and we showed the lay-abouts that they have a tough task ahead. With a full compliment of FAC’ers in Leeds I think they may be in for a surprise!
And so onto the lash, mysteriously with no Lash Marshall in sight – the pavilion was given a wide berth when it was realised the results may not be finished before Wembley hosts a cup final, and it was off to the Airport hotel Leon had booked. Lucie asked if we had enough cars, but it turned out we had more cars than a certain stretch of Derby Road, 6 in fact. Off we set in the Woontonmobile, with Leon navigating, who proceeded to take us for a spot of syncronised driving before a spell of Sunday 30mph driving on the motorway! Further doubt as to the exact location hotel followed, including a bit of driving on the wrong side of the road, before we arrived at the car park to find the two cars we thought we had lost were there, thanks to something called map reading??
A change, and a couple of pints whilst watching England’s bore draw and it was time to head to Manchester. A bit of a walk and a toilet stop uniquely in the airport terminal and we had found the station after some travelator escapades reminiscent of Long Eaton 2004! Some people looked for when the train was, other walked into waist high bollards…
The train left and after about 12 minutes stopped. And waited. The driver got out and the local populous helpfully offered to take over. We were slightly (!) late so there was a dash for some taxis to take us to the restaurant. Luckily I got into the taxi which actually had a Mancunian driver and got us straight there. Where the other taxis went we don’t know, probably to the wrong Pizza Express like in Leeds 2005. Food and a lot of wine were consumed, and then a dilemma: to stay in the city or venture to the post-race lash at the ‘Cheshire Cat’. The Cheshire Cat won out and we headed out to the suburbs. Worried that beer money was slipping away we stopped the taxi at £11, luckily this happened to be 50 yards from the hostelry.
There we then some shenanigans regarding entry which I missed playing Deal or No Deal with Davies, but apparently Myanna was a goddess in getting us in! Once inside it was definitely lash central and many more drinks were consumed. The first person I saw Machine speak to was a lady, naturally, and Hodson was on drinking and dancing form. Hannah asked the winners of the beer race to challenge 14ac, apparently they declined out of fear, and rightly so. Foster and Greenleaf broke even after 15 minutes on the quiz machine. Pitchers then became involved, but dancing then began on the mightily crowded dance floor. So the night didn’t break any haziness records (though Steve appeared to be trying) but was fun all the same. Back to the hotel and the hardcore Alex, Leon, Lucie got another drink. Everyone else fell asleep. I’m sure the others can add to the night action.
In the morning Machine and Leon had a race to attend to, despite Rich and his all you can eat breakfast – Machine rinsed it, Leon managed not to throw up.
Apparently there was some kind of car boot strikes skull incident in the morning as well, but I’ve been asked to glance over that.
Next stop Leeds, hopefully for improved racing and higher haziness!

hello!

Well, I don't know how the website works much as I'd like to update it - so in order to keep the information flowing, and to spread the word near and far, I've set up this blog for the time being.

Would very much welcome contributions from others!

I've produced a spreadsheet of the results from 2004/05 onwards so that we have a full archive of 14ac performances. I'll see if can get it up here somehow.

Anyway here are some other bits and pieces I have...