Spires and Steeples 2016

I did this one for the first time last year. It is low key event, there is no fuss. It follows the Spires and Steeples footpath from Lincoln to Sleaford. You park at the finish and a coach takes you up to the start. There is also a half marathon which starts halfway down the route and there are also walkers who set off an hour earlier on the marathon, so there are usually lots of people around.

After a lovely descent through Lincoln it is a pretty flat route which passes through numerous villages, crosses fields and and quiet country roads (and of course goes by many churches).

I came down the night before and as last year treated myself to this the night before:

I was up at 6.30 and left the Travelodge at 7.30. The dawn colours looked attractive

I caught the coach up without any problem. There was a different start from last year, just around the corner which made the distance about 0.25m longer which was fine.

They had the same checkpoint system as last year, we were given six elastic band with our race number on and we left on at each checkpoint and one at the finish.

A couple of people came and up and chatted as I was wearing my Elvet Striders hoody which as nice - one an Durham Harrier who now lives in Beverley and somebody else who is a good friend of one of our club members.

The start was well organised

Just as we left the rain which had been forecast arrived and it got quite heavy. We went down through the quiet Sunday morning streets in Lincoln. I didn't notice this in Lincoln last year

The rain lasted for about 3 hours so that wasn't great. The route also got quite muddy in places, much worse than last year. We crossed a few pretty bridges

and quite a few, probably ten, fields like this

These just got tougher as it went on, my shoes (Inov Ultra 290s) were picking up loads of mud and the only way of moving forward at any sort of pace was to adopt something like a cross country skiing action.

When the rain finally stopped, the sun came out but the wind picked up and it was a headwind. I was also a bit tired and I was walking far more than last year. Consequently, I finished 35min slower than last year. Not great but the conditions were definitely worse this year.

The course was signed very well except at one point (or maybe someone removed it the sign) where a few people made a mistake, but I was lucky as I could see them coming back to take the correct turn.

We ran through a field of chickens near the end, there seemed to be thousands of them

It was definitely worth doing this one again, but I think I was lucky with the conditions last year.