Tring to Town

As I can feel your hearts sinking at the prospect of one of my lengthy race reports and in view of the distance, I shall cut the usual preamble and proceed straight to the start line.

8.15am – Pendlebury Manor Hotel, Tring

113 runners on the start line for the 40 mile race along the Grand Union Canal to Kew, and some of these had already completed the distance in reverse the previous day. We felt like light weights who had turned up to a full/half marathon just to do 13.1 miles!

It was about half a mile out of the hotel and along the road to get onto the canal and to begin with it was a little crowded as the tow path was narrow and everyone was settling into their pace. It was great to be running so easily and still have Mr Sensibility running behind me saying “too fast, we’re going too fast”!! However, as usual he was right and we tried to keep to our pre race plan of 9 minute miles which was calculated to bring us in at 6 hours. It’s funny how, if you are doing a 10 mile race, it seems quite a long way, but when your mind set is to cover 40 miles, the first 10 miles fly past. We reached 10 miles in about 1.27, so just under target pace.

The next 10 miles passed uneventfully enough apart from passing the 3rd and 2nd placed ladies. In 2nd place (until we passed her) was the famous Mimi Anderson (you’re forgiven if you’ve no idea who she is – her fame only spreads to ultra running and Ambition Life in particular – but it was an exciting moment for me!). However, to put this in perspective, she had, as you would expect of her, also completed the previous day in a very respectable 5.43.00. As we drew close to 20 miles, we were both working just a little harder to keep on the pace, but again we went through 20 miles in 2.57, so still under target pace.

The absolute low point came in the next few miles when we passed a drunken tramp collapsed at the side of the tow path with various bodily fluids leaking from him, which had to be hurdled. Martin remarked that no matter how bad we felt, we definitely didn’t feel as bad as he did! Flippancy aside, we later heard that said tramp had died and the towpath had been closed – causing slower runners to make a diversion. It was opposite ends of the coin – at the front of the field, elite athletes and en route the lowest form of existence possible to attain.

Now that I’ve cheered you all up, on with the race report. The next 10 miles saw our pace slowing a little and keeping going became increasingly difficult. We were still catching and passing people who had not been as sensible as Martin about pacing, and we were gradually gaining on the one remaining female runner still ahead of us. At the final check point she lingered a little too long and we got ahead of her. It was evidently a nasty shock for her, she had no idea her first position was under threat (actually it wasn’t, I was quite incapable of posing a threat to anything that was faster than stationary by this stage!). So for a few heady moments I was “first lady”, but it didn’t last for long and she soon passed us. I think she had been taking it fairly easy up until then as she pulled away quite easily and eventually finished 4 minutes ahead of us. The amazing thing was that she had run yesterday as well in an impressive 5.20 so she was clearly in a different league than me.

We just managed to keep on target at mile 30 which we went through at 4.29, but it was a real struggle now and our pace fell off dramatically. Lack of training and the colds which we’d both brought with us to Tring began to take effect, and it really was mind over matter just to keep moving. I must have been in a better frame of mind than usual at this stage in a long race as Martin later thanked me for “not whining too much!”

The high point was discovering that the rumour we had heard about the course being short of 40 miles was absolutely true, and most unexpected because we had found out to our cost in the past that Ambition Life events are usually longer than advertised (don’t start me on Day 2 of MOB Coast!!!). We left the canal at Kew and began to follow the markers towards the finish at the Premier Lodge Hotel – never has a High Street seemed so long, but eventually we arrived and thanks to the slightly short course we had managed to achieve our target – finishing in 19th and 20th places overall for Day 2 in 5 hours 52.

Hats off to the overall winner – who completed Day 1 in 4.26 and Day 2 in 4.27 and looked as though he’d just been out for a stroll – awesome!

I won’t bore you with the details of Kew Tube station being a mile walk away and then not having any trains running, the bus replacement service or the multiple change of trains involved in getting back to Tring, nor the 3 hour drive home, suffice to say that next year we will be the tough guys completing both days – much easier logistically to arrive back where you started!!