I always travel by train to this one
and stay before and after at a local Premier Inn near the start/finsh. Well it is usually near the start/finish but they are always doing things to the roads round here and one of the the latest projects is replacing the footbridge. The new bridge is there but it is not in place yet. This was going to effect the event as well so it probably added another half mile as we were sent to the next bridge.
The start is the Scout Hut in Chaddesden.
They usually set us off in groups of about four every two minutes and my start was 8.20. However, they made it a bit easier for themselves and they set us off in groups of about twelve every ten minutes. Here is a group ready to leave out of the back door.
They offer an alternative route soon after the start. I have never seen anyone take it, but I thought that just for a change I would give it a try. Needless to say everyone else took the normal shorter route and and after a short while, I realised I had not made a good choice. My route had more undulations (although some nice views),
probably more mud and some very wet ground......
When the two routes merged, my starting companions were nowhere in sight. I went though Locko Park
through some lovely woods,
muddy fields and had a nice view of the village of Stanley.
The first checkpoint was there and the organisers had promised to set aside some vegan biscuits for me (I had vegan soup at the end as well, the organisers were just great !)
More woods
before passing under the M1 and on to one of the steepest climbs before some seriously muddy fields. It was worst at stiles of gates, there was just no way round it all. On to the next checkpoint where I found another vegan runner asking for biscuits, over a river and towards the bridge over the main north/south railway line
Across a busy road and into a narrow alley before another long muddy climb.
Good views at the top
Eventually we had some downhills after I had chatted to a Hardmoors runner for a while.
Soon after this about two hours early the rain arrived. Not heavy so it could have been worse. Some more ups and downs and muddy sections
before arriving at the third checkpoint which was heaving (the walkers had started from 7.00 so we were catching them all the time at this point). I headed through quickly - we didn't have printed race numbers, this is a low key event, we just had to make sure we gave our race number to someone at each checkpoint. Past the local church
About seven or eight miles later and the hairy crossing of the A38 where traffic is travelling at 70 mph, we made it to the canal.
It is basically 4m of muddy canal towpath followed by 5.5m of cycle path to the finish. But of course I was starting to feel a little tired after 23m and the hills and mud to take much advantage of the lack of hills. I tried a new approach, run and count to 100, then walk and count to 50 and repeat. And it seemed to work. I got back to the Scout Hut in 6hr 59min (pure luck I wasn't looking at my watch) which was 16min faster than two years ago and 31min faster than four years ago and I had run a bit further as well. I hadn't seen that coming.
Here is my before picture (with my lovely Saucony KOA STs which had only done about 5m)
and here is my after picture
Overall I enjoyed it !
