I hadn't expected any response, but two weeks later a letter arrived and enclosed was a cheque refunding my entry fee ! I was astonished, that had never happened before and it left me with a feeling that I would enter the event again and so I entered for 2016 in the autumn of 2015. They were taking entries on the day so I could have left it until closer to the event. Melanie had some training to do so I would be going down to do this on my own.
I have been given a map with the route on but it hadn't copied particularly well. I found a plan of a route on the web that looked pretty good and I downloaded that to my phone and Garmin, so I was hoping that with those three aids I should be able to get round. I wasn't expecting the route to be marked.
The forecast didn't look great, light rain on the walk over from the hotel and then heavy rain by the time I started. This was forecast to last for four hours before returning to light rain until my estimated finish time. After that it would clear up !
I checked in about 40 minutes before my start time and picked up what looked a better copy of the map and a written route description. I bumped into Simon, a 100 marathon club member I have seen at many events and later Paul, someone I had got to know via the fetcheveryone website. I started with them and Paul had done this route several times and it was useful to hang on to them and get through the first tricky bit of navigation. After that it soon became clear that I couldn't keep up (I had been struggling to chat to them and run) so off they went. We were now in pleasant undulating countryside and we soon entered what is or used to be a private estate, complete with lake and stately home.
Overall it was a fairly scenic route.
The course was unmarked (apart from one short 100 meter section which had three signs , a bit random) and you had to keep your wits about you not to make a mistake, there were lots of twists and turns and choices to make. I didn't do this to a standard I was happy with. In total I made three errors, but luckily none of them were serious. After about 8.5 miles, I knew I had to make a left turn but I made it too early. The path I had taken seemed to be going the wrong way so I headed across a field in what I thought was the correct direction. The runners behind me also took this path and called me back and said they thought the path I had originally chosen was the correct way. I followed them for about 100 meters and then I was convinced this wasn't right. Also walkers in the event behind us were looking at their maps, always a sign that something wasn't right. I called back the two runners I had been following and we went went back along the field to get back to the right path. They apologised for calling me back but the error was mine, I had turned left too early.
The second error was emerging from a field and turning right on to a road soon after 14 miles. There was a spectator there (one of very, very few, the heavy rain had arrived a few miles earlier). I should have turned left off the road almost immediately, but in my head I was at a different place on the map and I continued along the road. After about 100 meters I knew I was wrong from the bread crumb line I was following on my Garmin (the line wasn't there anymore, big clue !), but I didn't know what I had done wrong. Luckily the spectator was driving by in her car and she stopped and told me exactly what path I should have taken. That saved me considerable time, but I was still a bit disappointed with myself. I had had some difficulty with changing map pages in the rain and they hadn't gone in the map case properly so where I was on the map wasn't visible. If I had taken a bit longer to get the map case sorted when changing pages this probably would not have happened.
About a mile later I came to a new housing estate being built. Clearly the path which used to be straight on had gone. Do I go left or right ? Paths, both ways. I chose left and then spotted a hole in the fence. If I followed that line through the estate I would be running parallel to the original path. Fine in theory but my line ended up in a cul-de-sac so I had to backtrack and go further along. Slightly frustrating but I didn't lose much time here. Overall I have calculated I covered an extra 0.75 miles with my errors which wasn't to bad, it could have been a lot worse.
The rain finally stopped after 20 miles and the rest of the day was warmer. This was a relief, I had been starting to get a little cold. I also had been struggling with what felt like a crease in my sock which was making it a bit painful to run. I stopped a couple of times to try and take my shoe off to sort the problem but my hands were too cold to undo my laces which were also covered in mud. I had to resort to just trying to pull up my socks but that seemed to only help for a short time.
I have briefly mentioned the mud so far, but it formed a lasting part of my experience at this event. There was lots of it and it was often very slippery and boggy. Lots of people fell over and I almost went when running downhill. Early on I cursed not bringing waterproof socks, but my feet soon got used to getting wet regularly. It was particularly bad when approaching a stile or a gate and there were quite a few of those. One runner I spoke to afterwards who had done the event over fifteen times said it was the worst underfoot conditions he could remember.
One hairy bit was crossing the A38 at 21.5 miles. At this point the A38 is dual carriageway, traffic flying by at 70 mph + and crash barriers in the central reservation to clamber over.
I was stuck in the central reservation for longer than I was comfortable with.
My training for this event had been poor. It had been six weeks since my last marathon (and I had walked a fair amount of that one) and no more than one 10 mile run since. Not good enough, so I knew I would run out of steam at some point. But that point was 24 miles which wasn't too bad.
At that point I had just reached the canal.
Following a canal towpath for 3 miles sounds fine, but the towpath has a bit of muddy nightmare, very hard to run on, I was slipping everywhere and I just had so little energy left in my legs.
It was a relief to get to the checkpoint at the end of that section. I asked how far the finish I was told that it was 5 miles and that it was all flat on tarmac bicycle paths. That should have sounded like bliss, no more mud ! But there was nothing left in my legs and I only seemed to be able to run a few yards at a time. Power walking seemed fine so I resorted to that and made reasonable time back to the finish.
There was soup, bread, cake and biscuits awaiting in the Scout Hut at the finish.. The five checkpoints on that way round had had squash, water, hot drinks and biscuits, so I had had enough biscuits. The soup, bread and cheese were just lovely. There was a certificate to all finishers. Most of the entrants appeared to be fairly local and I only came across one person who had not done the event before which shows that those who have done it once like to do it again. Too soon for me to say whether I would do it again.
I made my way back to my hotel and treated myself
The route (corrected to remove my errors) is on Fetcheveryone
