15th March Happy 4th birthday Youlgrave Harriers!!


This morning I had the chance to go and run with one of the groups I join occasionally join if I am in this part of the world and that is the Youlgrave Harriers. 

And today was an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone; to join in with the 4th birthday celebration and also to trace the route of a run they organise each year but which I have not been able to enter before due to it being run on a Sunday, the Pommie Panter.

So on a beautiful spring day I gathered alongside 14 other runners, plus Arnold, our one canine companion, to cover the 5.8 mile jaunt up hill, down dale and through very boggy fields. The uphills, especially the starting lung burster, which after a few weeks of minimal running, soon explained why the race was called the 'panter, as I was panting for breath after the first couple of hundred yards. 

I also learned as I ran, why its called the 'Pommie' panter. One explanation suggests its origin is musical. The village has its own band – originally brass and now silver – established over a century ago when the local Co-operative store purchased the first instruments. 

Since few members knew any music their repetoire was somewhat limited and so early parades involved not so much a medley of tunes but rather the sound their limited talent could makes, a “pom, pom, pom” sort of racket. 

It was a lovely sedate, chatty jolly which got me out in some beautiful countryside, some miles back into my legs and gave me the 'excuse' to replace the burned off calories with a pork pie for lunch. Win win.

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