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. 

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.

Draycote Water 10k

This morning L and I head over to Draycote Water, where we did the ten miler last year, to run one of their regular monthly 10ks. Mainly because there is nothing else on. It’s not multiple laps like the 10 miler but does require a short out and back to make up the distance. My time of 48:43 isn’t great but then it was very windy again.

Afterwards we don’t initially appear on the results and I had to email to find out why. They quickly get it sorted and we soon exist again. Our times were apparently on their ‘backup’ system but not the main system. It’s odd it effected both of us because we neither started nor finished together.

Gerald Story Memorial

On Sunday there is no Three Villages 10K, which is everyone’s ‘go to’ race at this time of year because although it’s clearly organised at the last minute on the back of a fag packet, it’s all there is. It also usually goes ahead no matter what, including the year we had to ice skate round. This year though it is off due to ‘technical difficulties’ which presumably means someone’s lost the fag packet.

However, panic not. At Clumber last week they mentioned the Gerald Story Memorial race. We looked it up and it’s a 5 miler from Worksop College, so we decide to go there. I expected to hear that it was a new race but apparently it’s been running for years and years. Yet nobody told us. They give me number 007. I actually does say ‘007’ and not just ‘7’. I am your running special agent.

The race turns out to be 4.8 miles but it’s a useful leg stretch at this time of the year.