As I registered for my race on Sunday I bumped into a vastly experienced local runner who trots along at around the same pace as me. “What’s this one like”? I asked. “Not sure” he replied, “they all blend into one after a while”. This was a little puzzling as he has previously demonstrated encyclopaedic knowledge of almost every race I’ve turned up to. I thought no more of it and took up a position towards the back of the field as I was feeling some way short of my best. After all, in a seven mile race I could always go past people if I was feeling strong. Wrong! In this particular race the tactic is to get as close to the front of the field as you can and leg it as soon as the starter shouts “Go”! If you can then run like the clappers for the first half mile you’re almost guaranteed a victory over your rivals.
There were almost no opportunities for safe overtaking in the next five and a half miles and runners got bunched up as slower runners became slow-moving road blocks. With a record entry of over 400 those of us in the middle and towards the end of the field were stopping and starting and reduced to a walk as we climbed the first two miles.
When we eventually got onto the moor, it was no blessed relief; the organisers had forgotten to tell us that they’d borrowed Grimpen Mire for the morning for us to slog across. I will long remember the sight of two mud-splattered runners desperately tugging to release a fellow runner from a particularly foul smelling part of the bog. She’d wandered ever so slightly off path and was up to her waist in gloopy, black ooze. Once it was clear that she was no longer in danger, the whole incident cheered me up no end. I’d been slipping and sliding all over the place and had decided I was the most unfortunate and unstable runner on the moor. Three runners effortlessly overtaken and all three of them considerably dirtier than me. Result.
After some break-neck downhill sections we were faced with a short spot of rock climbing (from memory, I would grade it as Mild Very Severe) before a short stretch of track where overtaking was possible. I managed to get past a few runners in the final mile, but I didn’t have anything left by the end.
Whilst gasping for breath like a beached John Dory, my colleague from earlier (looking rested and refreshed) cheerily asked “What kept you”? From now on I think I’ll set off as close to the front as I can get away with at all trail, cross-country and fell races.
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