Bedford Autodrome 16 Mile

Sunday brings my final warm up race before Manchester next week. Of course, the beauty of training for a spring marathon is that you get to run some fantastically dull events as there is really little else at this time of year. Hot on the heels of the Half Marathon at Prestwold Hall which was organised by RunThrough Events comes the Bedford Autodrome 5k\10k\Half Marathon\ 16 mile\20 mile\Marathon (delete as applicable) also organised by RunThrough. This is basically Prestwold again but with the least dull bits removed.

Whereas Prestwold was only mostly on a car racing circuit Bedford is entirely on one although this is one designed by none other than Jonathan Palmer. Which would be great but seriously Jonathon... I’m not impressed.

The 5k is one lap of the circuit, the 10k is two laps, the Half Marathon is four laps... you get the gist. Pity the poor souls in the marathon, eight laps! That’s not me this week, I have opted for the 16 Mile option which is five laps plus a mini lap to make sure the distance is right.

Not that I’m sure it is right as I run 6:07 for the first mile which is insanely unlikely. Then again it is perhaps just another case of random mile marking and I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt about the overall distance.

The race itself is fine, once you’ve switched yourself off and got down to grounding out the laps. The tarmac is lovely and it’s all quite flat being on a motor racing track although there was a slight slope on one section of it. It was left to the strong wind to make it ‘interesting’, being behind you, then being a crosswind, then being in your face etc etc. Repeat for each lap.

They started the races in reverse order of length, so the marathon first, ending up with all the races on the track at the same time. So you never really knew who you were racing against but that was fine. No one cared who they were racing against, we were all here training for something else.

L ran the 10k and I did wonder if we’d get to run over the line together but it didn’t happen like that.

I think my time of 02:21:08 wasn’t great but having only Naseby to compare it, where I was three minutes quicker, it’s hard to tell and of course the Notts 20 did not give us any mile markers at all. I was also slow through 13 miles today but it’s all about getting some distance in a week out from the big one.

Notts 20

This morning L and go our separate race ways. She hops on the Red Arrow and then the Comet on her way up to the Kilburn Kilometres 10K. You’d think that the run would be a doddle after the transport arrangements but she says it was brutal with knee deep mud and loads of stiles to climb over. It took her 1 hour 24 minutes but naturally she loved it.

It sounds surprisingly like my race where there no stiles but still plenty of mud. Which wasn’t what I was expecting from the new Notts 20 Road Race.

I drive over to Holme Pierrepont nice and early which was a very good plan as the car park soon fills up. Parking anarchy breaks out with people abandoning their cars all over the place and it becomes apparent that they probably aren’t going to get 800 runners’ cars in but somehow everyone parks somewhere.

This is the first running of the race so there are going to be a few teething problems and that’s one for attention next year.

Practically everybody was doing this 20 miler to prepare for a marathon, so all the chat was about which one you were doing. Were you lucky enough to have got into London or were you doing Brighton or Manchester? Many were doing more than one of these.

The route consisted of two different loops out from the National Water Sports Centre. The first one of around 13 miles took us out through Radcliffe-on-Trent and Shelford. Then the second, of the remaining seven miles, took us out along the riverbank to the Victoria Embankment and back. The first part seemed to contain large chunks of the Outlaw bike course along with the legendary Adbolton Lane potholes while the second part seemed to contain large chunks of the Outlaw run course. So you could say it was all very familiar to me.

What I didn’t expect was that so much of it would be off road, around about two-thirds perhaps, and because the weather hadn’t been great of late, several sections of the course had turned in to either mini lakes or mud baths. It almost warranted trail shoes.

The last section along the riverbank was particularly grim with its puddles, mud and very narrow path. Which wasn’t the best choice for a race in March.

The other thing that made it a lot harder was the lack of miles markers. There were not at all. Apparently the organisers took the decision to take them down as they were in danger of becoming low flying missiles in the wind. Unfortunately, this looked a bit over the top with the wind having dropped considerably by race time. So once again I was wishing I had brought my GPS watch but we all ended up using the water stations, which were placed every three miles, as markers.

Anyhow it all went well in the end and it was all very well organised despite the less than perfect route. I was aiming to break three hours which I knew I was on to when I saw the three hour pacer behind me as we did an out and back section on the Embankment with around two miles to go.

I came home in 02:55:51 to claim a fairly naff medal but a very nice t-shirt.

Retford Half Marathon

After the exotic Sherwood Pines on Saturday, on Sunday I continue my marathon training with the equally exotic Retford Half Marathon. I’ve done this one before and it’s not that exciting but I need the distance.

L gets the short straw of supporting with the dogs. She doesn’t fancy running exotic Retford but is apparently dreaming of doing a Tough Mudder as we are possibly the only people on the planet who don't yet have a Tough Mudder t-shirt. Personally, I’m not sure I want one either but then I also wouldn’t be keen on paying the £10 charge to spectate. Yes really, I’ve never seen that before.

Aside from Tough Mudder she adds Dublin and Sofia to our Bucket List of must do foreign races. Adding to the likes of Copenhagen, Malmo, Krakow, Berlin, Tallinn, Riga, Amsterdam, Bauhaus and Hitchin.

My time at Retford of exactly 1:45 is four minutes up on my time there three years ago. So perhaps the training is paying off. As an added bonus this year's t-shirt isn't orange like last time and is actually quite nice.