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By Tony | November 29, 2007
On Saturday my running partner and I decided we were ready to attack the course and use it as a real time worst case scenario session. Due to work, we unfortunately couldn’t meet until 1pm at checkpoint 2.
We then cross decked kit and drove down to the start point. Here I left my own car to the mercy of the skateboarders (no problems at all btw), bonus was the car park was free on a Saturday, bad news is I didn’t know that till the machine swallowed £4 of my cash due do it breaking..
We set off not long after, with our kit we expect to carry on the day. Our plan for the real event was to run 5 miles, then tab 5 miles hit a checkpoint and then continue after a quick kit change with our support team. This however became obviously an impossible task due to certain parts of the route, if in the same condition, being mud traps and not worth the injury to attempt. So a 50/50 split over the entire 10 miles is more likely as opposed to strict 5 miles running THEN 5 miles tabbing. We followed the OS mapping to the letter and in the main it was fine. Although we took a detour due to bad signing around a field which added probably ½ a mile as well as a quick rummage through some blokes garden :O). Lots of interesting things to see especially the really posh house with the miniature train track running through its grounds..Bizarre!!..
The first 10 miles were both scenic, fun and very easy on the body. We arrived at the Church in 2 hours after running 5 mileish and tabbing 5 mileish… All easy to find, and as I said easy to navigate. I know now I do not need the map for that section although it will be carried. The church provided, by its enclosed entrance a nice warm place to sit and change out of our wet kit and into something dry as well as a place to get some extra fluids and food on board… Thankfully the Vicar/Priest never turned up as he would have been in for a shock to find men and women semi naked drying off in his church entrance.
By now it had become dark, which in all fairness was a bonus, so we set off again at 4:08 pm and decided to treat this leg as a night time one and see how slow we would be if we just forced marched it all the way at around 4-5 MPH…. Navigating at night was pretty easy and standard in our jobs. Only the forks in the tracks at certain points caused concerns but the trusted signposts were there to ease any concerns and matched the mapping…The route nearer the end became harder work due to the earlier rain turning it into a real mud bath and it started raining again..
The end was welcome and after having the joy of realising the first car was still there we sat down in it to assess any aches and pains.. Both of us were fine and we had done the 20 miles along with breaks in just over 5 hours. Considering we tabbed around 2/3rds of the course this was very good news and made us realise we were well on track to get to where we want to be on the day..We had been sat there in the car only 5 mins and by now the windows had steamed up…Bearing in mind this is a very quiet out of the way car park we were pleased to have attracted the local police who were expecting to find something different from the two muddied up man and woman chatting about Thames Meander.. It did bring even more humour into the day as we realised what they thought we were up to. :O)
Over the next few weeks we will be doing legs 2-4 and 4 to finish. Thankfully we are in a position to train the longer distances on the Tow Path as we both live within driving distance. Overall a great day out and nice to push out the distance and go at the slowest pace we ever intended to go and still nearly hit our predicted best times.. The next day we both only had slight aches as would be expected. Good times…:O)
Topics: Tony |