I did have doubts about doing this one. The forecast for Saturday was not good, strong winds and snow. Also the journey down from Durham didn't look good on Friday night, falling snow. But after a chat about it, Melanie and I decided to go for it. We left Durham with no snow and the further south we went the worse the snow got. In Derbyshire on the M1 it was quite heavy. Into Loughborough safely and into the hotel.
Awoke on Saturday morning to find a winter wonderland outside, several inches had fallen overnight. Checked the website and the event was still on. As another runner mentioned later, the Long Distance Walking Association (LDWA) are hardcore
Parked and walked to race HQ in a blizzard and saw that there were several familiar faces from Enigma events, the Great Barrow Challenge events and marathons we have done earlier in the year. The Town Crier was present in his full regalia and sent his off into the snow with his bell. We took it nice and easy and we were soon offroad and heading along footpaths, through villages and up hills deep in snow. As we climbed the wind started to bite and it got very cold. We were well equipped, I was wearing two tops and a waterproof, running tights, waterproof trousers, waterproof socks, gloves, hat and buff - the buff was invaluable to pull up to my eyes when running into the falling snow and bitter wind. We had microspikes in our rucksacks (not used), fleece tops (used at the start), spare gloves (used) and a spare hat and buff.
We had copied another runner's published 2010 route onto our Garmins. The vast majority of the route was the same with just some minor changes and it proved invaluable as it was so easy to miss turns with the heavy snow obscuring things. The course wasn't marked but they had marshalls out directing us in a couple of places where there might have been some uncertainty. Those marshalls and the ones at checkpoints must have been freezing in that wind.
I was expecting the route to be similar to the Belvoir Challenge, that is a few hills, nothing major and a fair amount of flat. The hills weren't too bad, but they kept on coming !
At the halfway point which is apparently the highest point in Leicestershire we passed a walker in shorts and no hat and no gloves He was carrying a rucksack, presumably full of warmer gear, so maybe he just felt more comfortable that way, but how he kept warm I have no idea.
It had taken 3 hours to get to halfway and both of us were not looking forward to another 13m, the snow seemed to be sapping energy from us. In one way we were lucky, the earlier runners and walkers (who set off an hour earlier) had trodden a wide path through the deep snow which made it a bit easier.
After half way I had a spectacular fall in heavy snow which kept Melanie amused. We were passing some walkers and I pulled out of the well trodden path into the soft stuff, caught my feet and went headlong, but I had a lovely soft landing
After reaching the top of another climb, the race instructions said you could go any route to the car park (which I couldn't see in the poor visibility), so we followed the route on our Garmins which worked fine.
Shortly after crossing the railway bridge (and after having seen a steam locomotive go by!), about 3 miles from the end we came onto a path where the snow had melted and there was just a complete mudbath. It probably lasted for a mile before we got back to Quorn where the race started and finished. Back to race HQ where we finished with 6hrs 50min. Probably my slowest marathon, but in those conditions we were very, very happy to finish
The food at the end was especially good even for an event of this type. A choice of at least four soups, cake, sandwiches (we had also had tea, cake and sandwiches at some of the checkpoints).
A challenging run. Photos
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