{"id":856617,"date":"2025-09-24T08:32:19","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T07:32:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dpfr.org.uk\/wp_dpfr\/?p=856617"},"modified":"2025-12-14T18:00:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T18:00:08","slug":"winter-monday-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dpfr.org.uk\/wp_dpfr\/856617","title":{"rendered":"Winter Mondays Series: the bare necessities"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now in its twenty-somethingth year, the \u2018Winter Mondays\u2019 series of road and trail races provide the perfect antidote to the commencement of the winter working week. The combination of regular on and off-road \u2018chasing start\u2019 races are an excellent way to gain or maintain fitness through the winter months, to add leg speed, and\/or to gain more confidence in night-time navigation and racing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Off-road trail races use a variety of departure points to the west and north-west of the city; many of which will be familiar to members. There\u2019s nothing especially difficult here in terms of navigation, although some sections of some routes may benefit from a daylight recce, and a fair amount of descriptive detail is included in the calendar entry for each race to assist the newbie, as well as links to individual race maps clearly showing the line and direction of travel.\u00a0 It\u2019s also absolutely fine to run in pairs if you\u2019d prefer some company.\u00a0 Full FRA kit must be carried as a minimum as well as a head torch, and a mobile phone in case of emergency and\/or torch battery failure.<\/span><\/p>\n

Road races are run every third week from Bolsterstone Church (or from Low Bradfield on occasion). Reflective vests and head torches must be worn.\u00a0 Please also carry a mobile phone in case of mishap.<\/span><\/p>\n

Start times for both varieties of race are between 6pm and 6.30pm – typically the slow and more infirm from 6pm onwards, with the chasing pack leaving at regular intervals thereafter, and series whippets setting off around 6.30pm. There\u2019s also a special dispensation for the over 70s, who are welcome to set off at any time before 6pm on the relevant Monday, with a view to finishing at some point before 7.30pm.\u00a0 If all goes to plan, this should result in a more or less competitive chasing finish.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Please sign yourself in before you set off, and add your self-recorded race time at the finish, using the R.O.\u2019s shiny black clipboard (which you should find secured to the front\/back of a slightly battered blue Skoda Roomster).\u00a0 Willy Kitchen, the R.O. (willykitchen@me.com), will always wait at the finish until everyone who has signed in has returned safely, and he\u2019s also happy to make a note of your mobile phone number, and an emergency contact number in case of mishap, if you\u2019re willing to share this.\u00a0 If you were to go off-piste, on either trail or road race, you would certainly not be the first to have done so.<\/span><\/p>\n

Carsharing is also actively encouraged, so please do keep an eye on announcements on the DP website, facebook page, and club WhatsApp groups – including a Winter\/Summer Series group created for precisely this purpose.\u00a0 Willy will aim to publish individual race results (calculated as a % of the winner\u2019s time) within 24-hours or so of each race, so you can all keep your eyes firmly fixed on the vagaries of race bonuses (awarded for bettering your preceding race result), and their impact upon <\/span>series standings<\/span><\/a> (using your best twelve results).<\/span><\/p>\n

History<\/span><\/p>\n

Dave Tait, the original and inimitable \u2018bit of a trod\u2019 Carshare, is credited with the first incarnation of the Winter Mondays series, sometime in the early noughties, when they were all run on the roads – possibly in their very first format from Hunter\u2019s Bar?<\/span><\/p>\n

By the mid-noughties they\u2019d moved to a regular spot from Bolsterstone Church to the north of the city, where they also attracted a fair few friends from Penistone Footpath Runners to the party.\u00a0 Nicky Spinks took over the organisation of the series in 2008, alternating one week on, one week off, with Keith Holmes\u2019s decidedly fiendish hill rep sessions from the same venue – the source of much blood, sweat and cussin\u2019 over the years.<\/span><\/p>\n

As Nicky herself notes, \u201cI started running the Winter Series in 2005 to 2006 when I needed to get faster for the Paddy Buckley. I don’t know when Dave started it. Keith would know as he was there from the start. There was also Rus Beresford and Ian Winterburn and Darren Unwin\u00a0 They were so accommodating to me on the hill sprints and I started doing an early start on the races as I was so slow (and got lost) so they were waiting around for hours (or came searching) for me.\u201d\u00a0 How the mighty are risen!<\/span><\/p>\n

For an almost complete back history of races and results, please see <\/span>Nicky Spinks\u2019 web pages<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 The current series organiser intends when time allows, and in the spirit of largely pointless Dark Peak endeavour, to pull together a definitive set of \u2018fastest known times\u2019 for various of the age categories – watch this space.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now in its twenty-somethingth year, the \u2018Winter Mondays\u2019 series of road and trail races provide the perfect antidote to the commencement of the winter working week. The combination of regular on and off-road \u2018chasing start\u2019 races are an excellent way to gain or maintain fitness through the winter months, to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":703,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[323],"class_list":["post-856617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-winter-mondays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dpfr.org.uk\/wp_dpfr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dpfr.org.uk\/wp_dpfr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dpfr.org.uk\/wp_dpfr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dpfr.org.uk\/wp_dpfr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/703"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dpfr.org.uk\/wp_dpfr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=856617"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dpfr.org.uk\/wp_dpfr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":857810,"href":"https:\/\/dpfr.org.uk\/wp_dpfr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856617\/revisions\/857810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dpfr.org.uk\/wp_dpfr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=856617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dpfr.org.uk\/wp_dpfr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=856617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dpfr.org.uk\/wp_dpfr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=856617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}