Friday 17 - Sunday 19 September - Equinox24 at Belvoir Castle

Where was Bertie? He was at the Equinox24 event at Belvoir Castle where it cost a total of £10.60 including (had we chosen to take full advantage) a pitch for three nights, use of portaloos and portashowers, water and waste facilities.  

Weather: Sunny intervals and 21 degrees on Saturday. A bit cooler and cloudier on Sunday, with rain starting just before 11am.

Background

After the Lakeland 50 I felt that the fitness I'd gained through five months of training hadn't been tested, and thus I put some thought into what I could do to take advantage of the hard work I'd put in. The plan I came up with was the Pennine Way in 7 days at the beginning of August then, if my body recovered in time, Equinox24 six weeks later. 

As described in my last-but-one post, the Pennine Way ended prematurely, and it didn't take me long to conclude that it was highly unlikely that the something-behind-my-knee would be recovered in time for Equinox24.

A bit of a description of Equinox24: it's a 24-hour race that takes place at Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire on the weekend nearest to the autumn equinox. The course is an undulating 10km multi-terrain circuit that competitors repeat as many times as they are able, or feel inclined to, between noon on the Saturday and noon on the Sunday. Theoretically a 24-hour race, but the rules work on a 'I've started so I'll finish' basis, such that any lap started before the 24-hour clock hits zero can be completed and will count towards the total tally. 

Entries closed at the end of August, and I dithered almost until the last minute over whether to enter. Eventually I concluded that the risk of the something-behind-my-knee curtailing my efforts was too great relative to the entry fee, and also had to concede that the amount of fitness I'd lost since the end of July was such that, along with my Pennine Way intentions, my 24-hour race aspirations will have to wait until next year. 

So, what were we doing there? Well, having never been to a 24-hour race, I thought it would be good to go along to experience the weekend, so I signed us up to volunteer on the registration desk on Friday afternoon/evening, and also bought us camping passes so that we could stay the whole weekend.

Friday

The entrance to the event field opens at noon on Friday and we arrived at about quarter past, giving us plenty of time for lunch and to work out what was where before we needed to report to Race HQ for our stint on the registration desk. The four hours giving out race packs sped by. My two best memories of that afternoon: 

1) When 'Are we Human?' by the Killers was played over the sound system, when it got to the line "And I'm on my knees, looking for the answers" two passing women got down onto their knees, mimed holding magnifying glasses and started searching through the grass. Then they got up and nonchalantly walked on. Perhaps you had to be there to witness it, but in the context of everyone else queuing or generally milling around, it amused me.

2) Of all the teams (I was dealing with Pairs and Small Teams; Mick was on Solos, another chap was on Large Teams*; we all dealt with 10k-ers), the one that got my 'best team name' vote was 'Divas with Belvoirs'. (You have to know how Belvoir is pronounced for this one to work).

Our reward for the volunteering stint was a meal voucher for one of the on-site vendors, so we made our way back to Bertie in the pitch dark clutching a tray of stir-fry noodles each. 

We also got a t-shirt for our trouble, but unfortunately in my least favourite t-shirt colour. 

(Incidentally, we discovered during our stint at Registration that even though entries had closed at the end of August, it would have been possible to enter on the day**. It took a lot of restraint to resist. If I'd had more than one set of running clothes and shoes with me, it would quite probably have tipped the balance over to an impulsive last-minute entry.) 

Saturday

Mick's day didn't start well, with a bad case of the runs (which, funnily enough, was exactly the name of one of the teams). That ruined his intention to join me for an early morning run around the course, to see what it was like. I went anyway, and it was lovely - as was the weather, albeit the misty start meant that none of the snaps I took came out well. 

As I failed to take a decent snap, here's a drone shot stolen from the Facebook page. 

Same photo but annotated with an arrow pointing at Bertie and orange dashes showing the 1km section of the route that goes through the camping field. 

The rest of our day was spent loitering around the site, watching first the conclusion of the Kids' 1km Fun Run, then hanging around to see the main race plus the daytime 10k set out an hour later. We were still loitering around start/finish when the first 10k runner crossed the line 37 minutes later. A pretty keen time on that course, but moreso as Adam was also entered as a Solo in the 24-hour race and ended up coming third, having managed 18 laps (just to say that again in slightly different words: he ran his first lap in 37 minutes, then went on to run a total of 180km). 

And they're off. Including Mr Blobby, albeit only for one lap as far as I know. 

This chap does, however, run every lap every year in a morph suit (and yep, it does cover his eyes, nose and mouth). 

After a couple of stints of spectating/encouraging further out on the course, one in the afternoon, one in the pitch dark whilst the night 10k race was going on, we called it a day.

Not much, bar torch light, to be seen at night. 

Sunday

We'd gone along to this event with the full expectation of not getting any sleep on Saturday night. There was, after all, a 24-hour race going on around us, with team members coming and going on a relay basis and with plenty of spectators to offer encouragement during the night. It turned out, however, that in our efforts to put Bertie in a position such that if it rained he wouldn't be far from a hard-surfaced track, we also managed to position him in the quietest corner of the field. We went to bed not long after 10pm and had a completely undisturbed night, not stirring until just before 7am. 

As I couldn't, in all reasonableness, go out on the course whilst the race was in progress, I opted to leave the running event to go for a run. Through Woolsthrope on Belvoir, out to a canal, along a disused railway, along some field tracks and back to the castle. Not as pleasing a 10km as the Equinox course, but it did the job. 

On reflection, it would have been more interesting to run along the tow path, rather than the adjacent disused railway. 

Another stint of spectating by the crossroads on the course (a location that has the advantage of having runners go past in four directions, so you get to see everyone in a short space of time) caused us some (sick and twisted) amusement by the state of some of the runners (in our defence, we were only amused by those who seemed just stiff or tired, not those who looked plain injured). The biggest giggle was the chap who got to the crossroads relieved that his jumper, that he'd decided he didn't need anymore, was still where he had left it, only then to find that he was unable to bend down to pick it back up. Other runners (including some Solos) were still moving incredibly well, including those that we recognised as the race leaders. Due to the nature of the event, for those we didn't recognise, we had no idea whether they looked fresh because they only wanted to do a few laps and had thus only just gone back out on the course after a few hours sleep. 

Another of Sid's morph suits.

Alas, the forecast rain came in about an hour earlier than anyone wanted, and whilst those on the course had to resign themselves to getting wet, we stood under a tree for a while, then scurried back to Bertie. Half an hour later we were heading home, foregoing the third night that our camping pass would have allowed us to stay***.

I'm pleased to say that the weekend hasn't put me off the notion of a 24-hour race, but, as much as I'd like to do Equinox24, it's unlikely it will be this one as I very much hope not to be in the UK in September next year.  

 

(*for Pairs and Teams (small and large) the event is run as a relay, such that only one member of the team is allowed to be on the course at any one time. 

**It's a funny thing, to my mind, that last year so many people were desperate for races to return, yet this year places are going unfilled. Equinox only had 1800 entrants this year across all of the adult races and categories - which was 1000 down on the last event, in 2019.

***The weather warning for flooding would almost certainly have caused us to leave anyway as we wouldn't have wanted to risk Bertie getting bogged down, but the actual reason we came home today was because I needed to get the door we made, primed and undercoated last week glossed before we go on our next trip. So, we came home, I rubbed down the primer/undercoat layers on the door and opened the brand new tin of Pure Brilliant White, only to find it full of black paint.)