Isle of Man Easter Festival

This year from Friday 6th April to Sunday 8th April marks the 50th anniversary of the very best trip in the calendar.

The trip will cost around £150 for everything except food and drink (exact price confirmed after travel booked), this really is a bargain and I cannot emphasis enough how good the trip is, just ask anyone who has been before.

We need to collect a deposit from everyone by the end of January at the absolute latest  so we can get everything booked before prices are ramped up. Cheques, payable to Doss AC, can be given Freddie Slemeck or Alex Bellew at training or sent directly to Doss President, James Raven, at:

14 Skipton Road

Cononley

North Yorkshire

BD20 8NH

For more details visit the Manx Athletics website, Facebook or Twitter

Jon Cocker’s Summary of the Weekend

For those who haven’t been before a trip to the IOM for the Easter athletics festival is the highlight of the running year!

It starts on Thursday when we drive or (as we did last year) catch the train to Liverpool. We then get the ferry to the Isle of Man and it’s a short walk from the sea front to check in at the hotel. Everyone obtains food from various places and we usually have a quiet night in at the B&B and maybe a few beers. On the Friday, we race in a picturesque 10k out from the harbour at Port Erin, round and back along the sea front and then, hungry from running/cheering, people again people obtain food from various places (don’t worry we do go out for a proper meal on Sunday – it has been at a nice Italian the last two years). It’s also worth noting that the 10k is in the evening so make sure you eat a lot of breakfast. This is followed by beer racing back at our hotel to decide teams for the main beer racing event at the end of the weekend…. and maybe some cake eating, arm wrestling and shouting. On Saturday there is a hill race which is followed by a pub crawl. It’s about 10 miles and about 10 pubs. It is compulsory to run… but you can pretend to be injured and hire bikes or walk but the most energy efficient way to travel is by hitch hiking (this is cheating so we all ran when we were first years except the people who hitchhiked – they didn’t)

(A photo of Port Erin – thought about walking to the tower on the hill but decided i’d probably miss the race.. and if I walk as slow as I run possibly the coach back as well)

Sunday is a 5k around the sea front close to where we are staying. It’s very flat and a bit of a joke by this point as everyone is so knackered! A lot of people seemed to jump in the sea, which was about minus 10 degrees last time and definitely a mistake! In the evening we went to an Italian for a meal and then to an Australian “club” (I forget the name) for beer racing against the other unis (which we won last year despite arch-rivals Ale House (Manchester) wearing t-shirts bearing the slogan ‘Beer Racing Champions 2011′ … or something like that). The prizes are awarded for all the races over the weekend and there are lots of sailor jerrys, dancing and some traditional Doss-Alehouse ‘banter’ (I think that’s what people call it) so make sure you bring all the yellow you own (yellow morph suits are the best)!  I then ate a kebab and slept for what felt like an hour at the most before heading home on Monday morning. Yeahhh.. the sea is usually pretty choppy and after a generous amount of beer the previous evening… it does seem slightly more choppy. A small price to pay for an ace weekend!