Friday afternoon saw Martin and I travelling down to South Devon through torrential rain in preparation for the Coastal Marathon at Beesands on Saturday morning. First problem encountered was when we arrived at the camp site we had booked near Kingsbridge, only to be turned away because it was waterlogged and one camper van had already become well and truly stuck! Fortunately we managed to find an alternative site fairly close by before heading into Kingsbridge for some serious carbo loading.
A sleepless night later (lying awake listening to the rain hammering down on the roof of the van) saw us up at 6.30 in order to get to the start in good time. We had to collect our "dibbers" - a trial method of time recording. These were small tags worn on a wrist strap which had to be "dibbed" at the various check points along the way. A fairly short pre race briefing then saw the race start at 9am sharp, with around 140 competitors starting.
Almost immediately we began to climb as the first 10 miles followed the coast path, east, towards Salcombe estuary. It was a mixture of very slippery mud and very slippery rock, but at least there was consistency on the gradient - it was either steeply up or steeply down! At one point I thought we had abandoned the race and taken up rock climbing instead. It was a stunning route, but not much attention could be given to the views as one step further south could have resulted in a one way plunge down the cliffs, and the sea did look very cold.
Once we reached the estuary and turned inland (not forgetting to dib our dibbers at the first check point!!) the going became slightly easier, but no less hilly as we followed quiet country lanes, very muddy bridle paths and fields. We picked the pace up a bit here and managed some fairly decent split times - especially once we rejoined the half marathon route (which had started an hour later than us) and had some other runners to pick off. Martin got a bit carried away and really started to push the pace for a while, with me struggling along behind hoping he'd soon run out of steam.
There were no marshalls on the course and we had a few anxious moments when we hadn't seen arrows or tape for a while and were worried that we had strayed off course. Also after 14 miles, when we had caught and overtaken about 6 runners who had been ahead of us, we had no-one in sight to follow.
Eventually the course wound it's way back down to the coast and turned east once more back towards Beesands. There now lay ahead a unique stretch of flat running on easy terrain, but we were too tired to appreciate it by this point and we were running directly into a strong headwind. With almost 26 miles on the GPS we thought we had nearly finished, but then discovered to our horror that the village we were approching was not Beesands butTorpoint! And worse, that there was no way around the cliff ahead of us which meant another stiff climb and descent before another long stretch into the wind and the eventual finish, which was logged at 27.7 miles!
We finished in 4.21.58, well within our 4.45 target, and in 9th and 10th places overall out of 133 finishers. The winner had finished in 3.58, which gives some indication of how hard the event was. Following on from the 4 Trigs last weekend, it's definitely the toughest challenge we've faced so far, either pre or post broken hip, so were understandably on a huge high.
We took advantage of the free post race refreshments, excellent vegetarian chilli, very spicy, just what we needed to warm us up, and stayed for the presentation, where I should have picked up a bottle of Champagne for being 3rd lady, but their supplies had not been delivered so instead I got a very fetching neck strap presumably for hanging your key on whilst running, although we're not entirely sure about that.
I apologise for the long winded report, but it was a long race, so to cut a long story short, IT WAS GREAT!
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7 comments:
Bloody well done!!!!What more can you say? Tres impressive!!
Yes, well done and absolutely mad, you wouldn't catch me doing that!!! (or rather you'd catch me all too easily). For a report of a rather less strenouos race, read on
Richard Says:
It’s a couple of years since I ran Butleigh (race no 2 in the Somerset Series) and this was Lesley’s first entry. On arrival we were very surprised to see a brand new clubhouse, in fact I think it was about 2 days old! Lovely clean building, showers, toilets etc – well it was before a load of muddy runners piled in after the race. I think this was the first time I have run the course in really wet, muddy conditions and I really enjoyed the challenge. Unfortunately so did Paul Chadwick who stayed one place ahead from roughly 2 miles. Lesley, who doesn’t particularly like wet or muddy, found it bearable, especially as it wasn’t cold. Unbelievably she had to go back to the car 3 minutes before the start as once again she had forgotten her race number!
There was an excellent selection of cakes, and the clubhouse builder was given the honour of starting the race. Once again thanks to all the marshals for standing around in atrocious conditions.
Apologies for spelling mistake in previous post. And I can't get it to change to Richard's name.
I can't believe they've revamped the facilities at Butleigh - surely part of the charm was the 20 deep queue for the one loo and the desperate squash in the "hut" afterwards vying for the cakes with a hundred other sweaty runners?!!
What Richard and Lesley very modestly didn't mention in their report was that Richard was 2nd MV50 and Lesley was 3rd FV45. Well done both! Here is a link to the full results: http://www.runnerswebuk.co.uk
Which doesn't work!!
(Go to Runners Web, club contacts, Somerset, Wells City Harriers, results)
Richard said:
Sunday saw us at the Teignbridge Ten. It’s a couple of years since I did this race. Last year a re-jigged course was introduced: first we did 1.5 loops near the school, then two loops round the clay pits and Viridor landfill site! before a final mile back to the school. Mostly familiar territory to the old route, very slightly undulating with good long downhill sections. While some might find these roads a bit boring, it does give a good opportunity for a fastish 10 miler. It was good to see a reasonable turnout – 224 – and well marshalled by Teignbridge trotters. Parking, showers, changing, teas and cakes at Teign School were all excellent. Weather was cool and overcast – perfect after a bit of warming up. Seemed to work for Lesley, as she romped home in 1:21:45. a ten mile PB, knocking over 5.5 minutes off her previous best! This resulted in Maiden Newton taking the first place in the FV50 category. Race mementoes were great, the prizes generous and the ceremony well presented by Dave Dunn.
Personally my 1:08:05 was my second best 10 miler, but didn’t even warrant a place in the SWRR 6 man team that took second team prize. On a positive note my right ankle held up well and I am looking forward to Taunton. As for Lesley, it seems she is in very good nick for London – well she survived a boring 21-mile canal path run with me. I say boring because I don’t say much at the best of times, and doing a run I usually take a vow of silence.
Thanks for the report Richard and congratulations to Lesley for the PB and the prize. The marathon training is obviously paying off.
Eagerly awaiting reports of Taunton marathon to appear. We have of course checked out the results - well done Dave! - but be good to have some race reports too.
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