Those of you who follow my blogs regularly will know that my
recent Great Britain selection for the World 100k Champs. was dependent on ‘proving my
fitness’ in a race longer than a marathon.
So it was with that in mind that I travelled down to the ‘land of the
concrete cows’ (AKA Milton Keynes) for the Enigma Running 30 mile race.
The race itself was quite a low key affair, comprising eight
and a bit laps of Caldecotte Lake. Unusually
it was an afternoon race, which started at 2.30pm, as there was also a separate
marathon in the morning. This posed a
bit of a dilemma with my usual pre-race eating regime and I ended up having a
second breakfast mid-morning! It also
meant that we started just as the clouds were dispersing to reveal bright
sunshine and the hottest part of the day - typical!
The wind also picked up in the afternoon which, although giving some
welcome cooling from the heat, was at times so strong across the open water of
the lake that running into it became a real battle, especially in the latter stages.
The course was marked with flour, which wasn’t exactly ideal
as by the time the marathon runners had been round a few times it was wearing
away and in places hardly visible at all!
With only 35 entries I found myself running on my own from the start
and, needless to say, it wasn’t long before I came to a junction of paths with
absolutely no idea which one to take! I
stopped and waited for the guy behind me, but he didn’t have a clue
either! Between us we made a guess and
luckily only took a very marginally longer route before we were back on
course. There were two or three more
occasions where we dithered and had to look really hard for the markings, and
at one point made a completely wrong turn and had to double back on
ourselves! All I can say is that it was
a good job it was a lapped course - I’d just about got the route sussed by lap
3! Added to this were many twists and
turns – at one point the path was heading straight towards the lake and we had
a minor panic that we were going to have to swim! Luckily we discovered it took a sharp 90
degree turn to the left to follow the lake edge instead. As well as route finding we also had to
negotiate pedestrians, dogs, children on scooters, wheelchairs, pushchairs,
ducks and geese! I guess it all added
interest to an otherwise long and lonely race.
The guy running with me, Darren, was great and ran the first two laps with
me until we’d got the hang of the route before settling back into his own pace. From then on I ran on my own and it was a
case of trying to maintain my pace and count the laps down. As ever my coach, Les, did a brilliant job
handing me my drinks every lap and shouting encouragement.
To cut a long story short, I ended up winning the race in a
time of 3hrs 44.25. Despite the weather,
navigation errors and dodging obstacles I was still inside the previous women’s
course best by over 2 minutes, and I’m pretty sure that’s the first time I’ve
been the overall winner of a mixed race.
More importantly, the verdict from one of the GB selectors who was there
to assess my run was one of total satisfaction.
So it was a job well done (providing the rest of the selection committee
agree!).
 |
| I seem to be enjoying it too much! |
