Naseby 1645

Today I take part in the Battle of Naseby, originally held on the 14^th June 1645 as the finale to the Civil War between Oliver Cromwell’s lot and King Charles I’s lot. Now re-enacted, of sorts, across 16.45 miles of rolling Northamptonshire countryside. They call it ideal marathon preparation.

The all road route takes in numerous memorials and viewpoints of the battle but as I haven’t packed by guidebook a lot of it passes me by. Anyhow this is all about getting the ideal marathon preparation in.

I record 2:21:51 for the unusual distance, an average of 8:40 per mile. Way below my 8:00 pace at Prestwold but inside my intended 9:00 marathon pace, so probably about where I need to be. Just need to add another 10 miles to it.

It was a pleasant little event despite the orange race t-shirt.

Leicestershire Half Marathon, Prestwold Hall

Today I do the Leicestershire Half Marathon which is the rather curious name they have given to a race that starts and finishes at Prestwold Hall. Which is, granted, in Leicestershire but then so are countless other places… 

It is organised by RunThrough who specialise in events that make you run through places repeatedly. This one is centred on Prestwold Driving Centre which is right next door to the hall and is just ripe for doing laps of.

It actually turns out better than I expected with the start\finish in front of the hall and even a trip out on to real roads, the only issue there was we had to do a short cross country section to get there. Then we finished off with some inventive looping of the Driving Centre e.g. they didn’t just make us go round. They were quite cunning and made us double back on ourselves and stuff like that.

Anyhow I must have done ok because my time of 01:44:57 can only be bettered in the last twelve month by my Robin Hood time. I even, sort of, enjoyed it.

Nottingham Winter Warmer, Wollaton Park.

This morning L, Daughter and myself are all running the Nottingham Winter Warmer Run at Wollaton Park. It’s a 10k but there’s also a 5k option. As ever with Wollaton Park it’s a one lap or two lap choice.

Daughter is joined by two of her men. A +1 I suppose and a +2. They all park at ours and walk across while I, although I know it’s not really the done thing, drive over so that we can take the dogs with us. I manage to park them nice and close to the start, so then it’s easy to give them a run around both before and after the race.

I initially try to stay with Daughter’s +1 or was it the +2, the one that regularly does the parkruns with us, but he’s far too fleet footed (e.g. young) for me to keep pace with but I will blame the somewhat slippery conditions.

I slither around in a mind bogglingly bad 49:02 but given that the whole thing is miserably wet, cold and very muddy, I was just pleased to get around without getting injured. If ever the phrase 'Winter Warmer' had been misused, this was it. The only thing warming about it was the hot shower back at home afterwards.

Anyhow. Training run ticked. Naturally, L loved the conditions.