Where was Erica? She spent the weekend in a field next to the River Ouse at St Neots, at a cost of £15 per night for a patch of grass with no facilities, save for some portaloos (not even a tap).
Weather: Friday: wet, wet, wet! Saturday: some rain, lots of sun but winds up to 45mph from noon onwards. Sunday: sunny start, afternoon irrelevant.
A few weeks ago I was offered a place at the inaugural edition of a 12-hour running event, free of charge provided that I ran in a Spider Runners top. The top cost approximately the same as an entry to this (remarkably cheap, in the scheme of running events) race. However, as I was in need of a new vest anyway, the free place seemed like pretty good value. The camping fee was extra, and on the face of it not good value, but we’d never been to St Neots before, so we figured we’d be happy to have a weekend away there, no matter what happened at the event, so we booked it.
It’s now Sunday evening, and I’ve still not seen St Neots. This is how the weekend went:
Friday
We woke to rain and the forecast said it wasn’t going to cease in St Neots until 7pm. Not feeling inclined to go exploring in that, and not wanting to just sit inside Erica in a rainy field all afternoon, we delayed our departure from home until after lunch. Arriving at the field in question, after a smooth journey, at just after 3pm, having not known in advance what the site/course layout was (i.e. whether we would be able to park a short distance from the running route), we were pleasantly surprised:
Weather: Friday: wet, wet, wet! Saturday: some rain, lots of sun but winds up to 45mph from noon onwards. Sunday: sunny start, afternoon irrelevant.
A few weeks ago I was offered a place at the inaugural edition of a 12-hour running event, free of charge provided that I ran in a Spider Runners top. The top cost approximately the same as an entry to this (remarkably cheap, in the scheme of running events) race. However, as I was in need of a new vest anyway, the free place seemed like pretty good value. The camping fee was extra, and on the face of it not good value, but we’d never been to St Neots before, so we figured we’d be happy to have a weekend away there, no matter what happened at the event, so we booked it.
It’s now Sunday evening, and I’ve still not seen St Neots. This is how the weekend went:
Friday
We woke to rain and the forecast said it wasn’t going to cease in St Neots until 7pm. Not feeling inclined to go exploring in that, and not wanting to just sit inside Erica in a rainy field all afternoon, we delayed our departure from home until after lunch. Arriving at the field in question, after a smooth journey, at just after 3pm, having not known in advance what the site/course layout was (i.e. whether we would be able to park a short distance from the running route), we were pleasantly surprised:
Through a rain spattered rear window, the running course is two paces behind Erica, and we had a view of the river just across the grass.
Mick's view, 24 hours later when the weather was much drier.
As the rain eased off sometime after tea, I wandered over to the registration desk to pick up my race number. A bit of TV, then early to bed (the running event was happening alongside a full-distance triathlon, which was starting at 6.30am, thus we expected people to be up and moving around from 5am).
Saturday
The 7km lap that I was going to repeat as many times as I could within 12 hours.
Over breakfast we watched triathletes swimming up and down the river. I have no idea how much wind affects open water swimming, but with the river looking decidedly choppy, it didn’t look as easy as it might have been on a calm day. Everyone was out of the water and on their bikes well before people started gathering for the 12-hour run.
With ten minutes to go until the off, the heavens opened. “At least with this wind it will pass through quickly” I said, but it was a bigger pocket of rain than I’d thought, and was still going when our starting klaxon sounded. There were two other occasions throughout the day that I put my waterproof jacket back on, but in total I can’t have worn it for more than 20 minutes, so it wasn’t a bad day from a rain point of view. There was certainly more sun than rain, but it was the wind that was the most notable feature – a blessing and a curse, but perhaps the blessing outweighed the curse, as not only were the tailwind sections of the course nice, but it stopped the temperature from feeling too warm.
We were under a Met Office weather warning for strong winds and the course became more littered with tree debris as the day went on.
The whole thing was good fun (maybe less so in Lap 10; lots of aches and pains by then, particularly during the period when my right little toe nail was parting company with my toe), with superb supportive marshals, and good chat with other competitors. A not-quite-unique-but-unusual feature was that we ran through the huge beer tent on every lap, with the excellent announcer announcing every runner each time, whipping up lots of cheers and support.
Gradually, from a few laps in, we were joined on the course by the triathletes running 6 laps for the marathon element of their event. Not so much chatting with them, as, by the nature of their event, they were focused on finishing as soon as possible, rather than pacing themselves to go as far as possible, but I managed to spend a couple of hundred metres with a few of them before they pulled ahead.
Mick, having tended to all my needs and diva-ish wants (“Can you make me a hummus and avocado wrap for the end of the next lap? And can you cut it into quarters for me?”, that sort of thing) throughout the day, came out with me for the final two laps as I wasn’t happy with the thought of making my way around the now almost deserted (most other runners had stopped, and those who remained were well spread out) public paths through the parkland by myself in the dark, with the prospect of gathering yoofs and random drunks* and, who knew, maybe mad axe murderers and rapists.
After Lap 10 it had felt touch and go as to whether I would complete Lap 11 in time to start Lap 12 (this event had a hard 2230 cut off, not a ‘you’ve started so you can finish' policy for the final lap), but I managed to speed back up almost to the pace of my first laps, and finished with a whole eighteen minutes to spare. I’d covered 84km (52.5 miles) in 11 hours and 42 minutes.
What I really wanted to do then was to go back to Erica, have a recovery drink, have something to eat and get changed, but then I discovered that I’d either come first or second female, and I really wanted to know which. Plus, I’ve never stood on a podium before and had a great heavy medal put around my neck, so there was that novelty too (I can now report that getting back down from the podium after spending almost 12 hours of running is a challenge!).
On the podium, in the dark. Third placed woman, also a Spider Runner, had (quite sensibly!) already gone home.
It turned out that I’d come second. First lady did the same number of laps, but 4 minutes faster. Could I have gone 5 minutes faster over the course of 12 hours? Undoubtedly. I didn’t need to walk the majority of laps 3 and 8, but did so because I was chatting with interesting people. I didn’t need to stop to chat to one marshal in particular on every lap (I spoke to all of them in passing, but this one I stopped for a few words each time). And I didn’t need to help by recovering signs that had blown away and re-siting them. But would I have had such a fun day if I’d omitted all of those things? Definitely not. So, I’m delighted with taking second place (quite frankly, just meeting my own goal was enough. The podium place was the icing on an already magnificent cake).
We finally got to bed at midnight, without me having had any post-race food (not helped by the fact that whilst packing Erica on Friday I said I would check her gas level, I then got distracted in the 10 seconds it took to get from house to vehicle, and didn’t check it. We ran out on Saturday afternoon, so couldn’t heat our evening meals). Initially I lay there with my mind far too active for sleep. Then I just couldn’t find a comfortable position with so many bits of me hurting. Then at 2am the hunger hit, and I couldn’t retrieve any food without disturbing Mick, so I lay there hungry until 5am when I finally fell asleep. At 6.30am we were woken by some noisy machinery nearby (we didn’t investigate, but I now think it was probably the portaloos being serviced and emptied, ready for another, shorter-distance triathlon today).
Sunday
With no gas to make a cup of tea this morning, and having forgotten to soak our porridge last night, and with my left hip screaming at me when I put weight on it, and an angry lumpy tendon in my left foot** (yes, Saturday was fun, honest!), walking into St Neots didn’t greatly appeal. So, we got away early and drove to the first McDonalds on our route home. A McMuffin meal was exactly what I needed, but perhaps I should have got myself two cups of tea.
We were home by mid-morning, having completely failed to see St Neots during our visit there, but an excellent time was had (more so by me, but Mick enjoyed his day too).
Spider Runners (except those who were in the Portaloos or faffing with kit elsewhere)
With ten minutes to go until the off, the heavens opened. “At least with this wind it will pass through quickly” I said, but it was a bigger pocket of rain than I’d thought, and was still going when our starting klaxon sounded. There were two other occasions throughout the day that I put my waterproof jacket back on, but in total I can’t have worn it for more than 20 minutes, so it wasn’t a bad day from a rain point of view. There was certainly more sun than rain, but it was the wind that was the most notable feature – a blessing and a curse, but perhaps the blessing outweighed the curse, as not only were the tailwind sections of the course nice, but it stopped the temperature from feeling too warm.
The whole thing was good fun (maybe less so in Lap 10; lots of aches and pains by then, particularly during the period when my right little toe nail was parting company with my toe), with superb supportive marshals, and good chat with other competitors. A not-quite-unique-but-unusual feature was that we ran through the huge beer tent on every lap, with the excellent announcer announcing every runner each time, whipping up lots of cheers and support.
Start of Lap 1
Lap 6
Gradually, from a few laps in, we were joined on the course by the triathletes running 6 laps for the marathon element of their event. Not so much chatting with them, as, by the nature of their event, they were focused on finishing as soon as possible, rather than pacing themselves to go as far as possible, but I managed to spend a couple of hundred metres with a few of them before they pulled ahead.
Mick, having tended to all my needs and diva-ish wants (“Can you make me a hummus and avocado wrap for the end of the next lap? And can you cut it into quarters for me?”, that sort of thing) throughout the day, came out with me for the final two laps as I wasn’t happy with the thought of making my way around the now almost deserted (most other runners had stopped, and those who remained were well spread out) public paths through the parkland by myself in the dark, with the prospect of gathering yoofs and random drunks* and, who knew, maybe mad axe murderers and rapists.
After Lap 10 it had felt touch and go as to whether I would complete Lap 11 in time to start Lap 12 (this event had a hard 2230 cut off, not a ‘you’ve started so you can finish' policy for the final lap), but I managed to speed back up almost to the pace of my first laps, and finished with a whole eighteen minutes to spare. I’d covered 84km (52.5 miles) in 11 hours and 42 minutes.
What I really wanted to do then was to go back to Erica, have a recovery drink, have something to eat and get changed, but then I discovered that I’d either come first or second female, and I really wanted to know which. Plus, I’ve never stood on a podium before and had a great heavy medal put around my neck, so there was that novelty too (I can now report that getting back down from the podium after spending almost 12 hours of running is a challenge!).
It turned out that I’d come second. First lady did the same number of laps, but 4 minutes faster. Could I have gone 5 minutes faster over the course of 12 hours? Undoubtedly. I didn’t need to walk the majority of laps 3 and 8, but did so because I was chatting with interesting people. I didn’t need to stop to chat to one marshal in particular on every lap (I spoke to all of them in passing, but this one I stopped for a few words each time). And I didn’t need to help by recovering signs that had blown away and re-siting them. But would I have had such a fun day if I’d omitted all of those things? Definitely not. So, I’m delighted with taking second place (quite frankly, just meeting my own goal was enough. The podium place was the icing on an already magnificent cake).
We finally got to bed at midnight, without me having had any post-race food (not helped by the fact that whilst packing Erica on Friday I said I would check her gas level, I then got distracted in the 10 seconds it took to get from house to vehicle, and didn’t check it. We ran out on Saturday afternoon, so couldn’t heat our evening meals). Initially I lay there with my mind far too active for sleep. Then I just couldn’t find a comfortable position with so many bits of me hurting. Then at 2am the hunger hit, and I couldn’t retrieve any food without disturbing Mick, so I lay there hungry until 5am when I finally fell asleep. At 6.30am we were woken by some noisy machinery nearby (we didn’t investigate, but I now think it was probably the portaloos being serviced and emptied, ready for another, shorter-distance triathlon today).
Sunday
With no gas to make a cup of tea this morning, and having forgotten to soak our porridge last night, and with my left hip screaming at me when I put weight on it, and an angry lumpy tendon in my left foot** (yes, Saturday was fun, honest!), walking into St Neots didn’t greatly appeal. So, we got away early and drove to the first McDonalds on our route home. A McMuffin meal was exactly what I needed, but perhaps I should have got myself two cups of tea.
We were home by mid-morning, having completely failed to see St Neots during our visit there, but an excellent time was had (more so by me, but Mick enjoyed his day too).
I could identify with this in other contexts, but in this case, I'd only entered two weeks ago
(*as it went, the gathering yoofs I encountered on Lap 10 had all gone by dusk, and only one staggering drunk was seen, who went off in a different direction before we caught him up. No idea if we met any murderers and rapists - a minuscule risk but not a category of person you can identify in passing.
(*as it went, the gathering yoofs I encountered on Lap 10 had all gone by dusk, and only one staggering drunk was seen, who went off in a different direction before we caught him up. No idea if we met any murderers and rapists - a minuscule risk but not a category of person you can identify in passing.
**when I entered this event 2 weeks prior, I knew I wasn't properly trained for it but also thought I was in good enough shape to give it a go. For me, the difference between training and not is the level of pain incurred.)
Brilliant! Well done indeed; do it while you can...
ReplyDeleteThank you - and I'll certainly try to continue to, whilst I can!
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