Race Date: Thursday 20th June 2024

Race Report by Ellen Broad

The Midsummer Mad Dash is a 5-mile(ish) trail race in High Green hosted by Valley Hill Runners. It’s one of the races in our trail champs. This year it was held on Thursday 20th June, which happened to coincide with one of England’s Euro 2024 games, so I’m sure that would have reduced the number of people turning up. I am normally a pretty avid football fan, but given England’s performances so far in this tournament I’m very glad I spent my evening at the trail race instead!

The race HQ and post-race buffet were conveniently located at the Pack Horse pub (which incidentally was showing the football), and the race started in the woods at the bottom of the road. The route consisted of a small lap and a big lap around the surrounding woodland, with a couple of stunning views if you had the time and energy to appreciate them! I had been told the race itself was ‘undulating’ and someone had sent a Strava link to the route beforehand which suggested a few hills, but I still wasn’t prepared for how steep some of the climbs were, although the steeper ones were mercifully short!

The highest point was about 3 miles into the race, after the steepest of the short climbs, and the marshal told me ‘it’s all downhill from here’! As I had pushed quite hard up some of the hills to get to this point and was sitting in the position of first lady, I was very glad to hear these words. I thought there would still be some undulations, but nothing too bad. However, the next mile or so consisted of constant short ups and downs along woodland trails (a bit like the start to Graves parkrun) which I found very energy sapping and much harder than I would have liked! The route and trails themselves were really nice but I was very glad when I recognised the finishing section, and even more glad to have retained the first female position!

However, the star of the show was definitely the evening buffet and prizes on offer. The buffet was extensive, with pizza, sandwiches, sausage rolls (some homemade), quiche, salad and endless varieties of cakes! There were numerous prizes on offer and also spot prizes, meaning everyone was in with a chance of winning something! As first female, I managed to bag a bottle of prosecco, a mug (with first female printed on it) and a £20 voucher for Up and Running, so definitely made the £7 entry fee worth it! I would definitely recommend this race to others next year, if only for the post-race celebrations!

Well done to everyone else who ran, including the other Striders forgoing the football and making the trip to High Green. Particular well done to Lucy Broom and Fiona Jeffries who finished not far behind me, making it a Striders female 1,2,3!

Thirteen Striders were among 101 runners who lined up for the Midsummer Mad Dash. The men’s race was won by Jack Chennell of Higham Harriers in a time of 31:07. Well done to Ellen, winning the women’s race in a time of 39:36.

Striders Results