Race Report - Bedgebury Forest Trailblazer 10k 2014

Holy cow, a race report!  It’s almost exactly a year since my last race, The Wall RunUltramarathon 2013, so you’d be forgiven for being startled by this post. My apologies. Take a moment to recover.

But first, a quandary. What on earth do you buy for someone who has no birthday gift list and no Christmas list, but has his birthday four days before Christmas?  You’ve got to start with buying two things, obviously, one for each gift-receiving event. And they’re both for your brother.

I ummed and aahed. I rejected clothes (I don’t think he believes in clothes), I rejected DVDs (no-one buys DVDs any more, do they?) and I rejected anything that was explicitly marketed as a gift (ie a disposable thing of inflated value and limited longevity). I pondered. I almost bought things. Then I had an idea. The Crew Chief and I have a habit of buying each other weekends away, theatre tickets or other such experience-based gifts, so I applied this idea to my conundrum.

So I signed Nick and I up to run the Trailblazer.

On his/our birthday I presented him first with a new pair of running gloves (something he actually needed), then with an envelope containing a print-out of our race entry confirmations. I prepared my gracious-gift-giving-face.

He didn’t seem impressed.

But fast forward six months or so, and he seemed pretty keen as we laced up our trainers and headed down to the forest for a few miles of muddy adventure. Nick had never run a Rat Race event before and I had a feeling he would enjoy it. The only recent occasions we had run together had highlighted that he’s in much better shape than me – doubtless owed equally to his 10-mile round-trip of a commute on his bike every day and a convincingly motivated running schedule which I do not possess. I had neither of these things to boost my confidence and hoped only to be able to hang on to whatever speed he brought with him.

In fact I had even less to work with. My stomach was misbehaving and the Gingerbread Man was a nagging concern all morning in the build-up to our wave’s 11.15am start time. Perhaps my sushi-and-lager dinner the night before, hurriedly wolfed down in Edinburgh airport before I dashed to my Gatwick flight, had done me no favours. But something tells me that I’ve developed a habit of inflicting physiologically-manifesting pre-race nerves on myself which I really need to get under control…

Things started predictably in Bedgebury. I’ve never been to this particular forest/country park/pinetum (new word for the day) and it makes for a great venue for the usual Rat Race set up of beer tent, kit store, warm-up area, stage, registration tent etc. We mumbled quiet curses at the summer rain and it eventually got the message and shoved off before our start time, leaving a sunburn-inflicting cloudless sky. By the time our wave was deemed warm and ready to go we processed down a steep gradient to the start, as I mentally and with muttered curses registered the number of feet that would later need to be regained in ascent. A final briefing (‘the park is open, mind the mountain bikes!’) and we were off.

Tight early turns and a narrow course, even for our small-ish wave of runners, made the first couple of kilometres a tough exercise in positioning and finding a comfortable pace. Nick seemed to fall into an early rhythm, and I tried to slip into his step but found myself working harder than I should have. Before long I started to worry about my stomach – I was sure that I was going to vomit or do something worse at a microsecond’s notice. I tried to suppress negative thoughts and enjoy the view.

The course is set in a lovely environment, along rough, stone or muddy roads and trails through a dense forest, and a wholly pleasant place to be of a Saturday morning. As ever with Rat Race events, the marshalls were cheerful and eager and the drinks table (cleverly visited twice on the course without having to run laps) was well stocked and was staffed by smiling, eager faces attached to quick hands. If I had any criticism it was that there wasn’t enough muddy, technical trail and a little too much tarmac for something billed as a trail race, but part of the issue may have been that we changed surface so many times that it was difficult to find any consistent rhythm. I guess I was hoping for something like a chunky, entertaining cross-countryish course rather than a forest-based road race with some muddy bits, but I can hardly complain. Rat Race offer plenty of races with much more nonsense if you’re so inclined. The only ‘obstacle’, as far as I remember, was a very small ditch, but the deceptively long hills, undulating profile and tight corners were more challenging than they first appeared.

Regardless of surroundings, my stomach was wretched. Nick and I had gone through 5k together in a little over 24 minutes, but at a water station shortly afterwards I slowed to drink while Nick carried on. I fought to catch up but only to tell him to stop waiting and to go on ahead. He didn’t need telling twice.

I lumbered through the next few km’s keeping Nick in my sights, usually about 15-20 metres ahead of me. At this stage I was sustaining myself by thinking that I could still partly salvage, if not entirely save face. But just before 9km the race chucked us out onto tarmac, and Nick lit the afterburners. I had nothing in the tank to respond with and watched him go.

Nick about to finish

I hauled myself onwards and up a final grassy incline to the event village, relieved to arrive in the finger-loop which immediately preceded the finish line. I tried to pick up the pace and look a little more impressive for the only section of the course to feature any spectators (including both of our parents), but spoiled it by immediately by landing on all-fours once over the line, anticipating a return appearance of my breakfast, which mercifully never came. My chip time read 50:37, Nick’s was 49:43, which was good enough for 68^th (me) and 59^th (Nick) from a field of around 600. Not bad.

Very relieved to be done. Ace goody bag.

We hustled ourselves more or less straight into the beer tent for some pints and watched the last few waves warm up and process down to the start. My dad, who I don’t think has seen me race before, took a lot of photos and marvelled at the slick set-up of the event village. My mum cursed her hayfever and gave the bored-looking first aiders something to do by soliciting an antihistamine.  They both fussed over us with towels and spare clothes, then immediately uploaded their finish-line photos to Facebook, accurately capturing how totally wrecked we were. A classic race day.

It’s rather good, this racing lark, eh? I might do some more of it.

Happy running

Dave

Race Report - Glasgow MoRun 2012

Having registered for the Glasgow MoRun 10k on a whim, in a hurry and unimpeded by the Crew Chief’s appeals for logic and sanity when designing my calendar, I approached the whole business with a certain reckless enthusiasm and revelling in the timeless ‘ignorance is bliss’ maxim. So much so that I had overlooked the need for a disastrously early start, the unimaginative two-lap course design or that most heinous of race-organisers’ crimes: a finishers’ T-shirt that you have to pay for separately…

But we had paid up and made a plan, and so it was that the Crew Chief and I left our lovely warm flat in Edinburgh at 8am to hit the motorway, picking up the usual troublemakers Neil ‘4:33’ Gray and his own Crew Chief Karlie. With absolutely no mishaps to do with multi-storey car parks, green buttons, slip roads or traffic lights, we made it to Glasgow with an embarrassingly large amount of time to spare, luxurious Mo’s adorning our faces as we wandered around the chilly Saturday morning bustle of the city.

Arriving at Glasgow Green and spotting the event village not far off, a marshall asked us if we were here for the race. Dressed in our running gear and with large painted moustaches smeared on our faces, I decided to humorously say ‘no’, which went down like a lead balloon. After a brief lecture we were pointed to the fairly obvious event village, and meandered over to register.

Ready for the off.

Being achingly early, we had plenty of time to pin on our race numbers (which had a space to write your ‘Mo Name’ – we chose Dave and Neil because we are boring), watch other runners arrive in a variety of ill-thought-out costumes, and above all, get very cold. When the time at last came for the ubiquitous mass warm-up, a fairly sizable crowd of runners and supporters had assembled and the mood was buoyant and light-hearted, but this did nothing to warm the morning's bitter temperatures. Neil and I participated in the mass warm-up with our hands firmly wedged in our pockets.

The 5k race took off ten  minutes before our 10k – a ragtag bunch of runners in lycras mixed in with people dressed as Mario, Scooby Doo and dozens of others. Almost everyone sported a Mo – real or otherwise – and this includes the large number of women and children in the race. It was an impressive sight.

Ten minutes later it was our own turn, and we finally relinquished our tracksuit bottoms to reveal running shorts and freezing knees underneath… We were a little slow off the mark to get lined up, meaning that we found ourselves some way down the pack, which proved a significant issue with early bottlenecking. Although we had no loftier aspirations than to trot round in under 50 minutes, Neil and I are terrible together when it comes to competition, and we gleefully picked off swathes of runners as we worked our way towards the front of the race. Just as with my Edinburgh Christmas Run in 2010, I had a feeling that this was closer to a fun run than a race, and we risked doing embarrassingly well in terms of rankings for our quite average pace.

So the goal was upgraded – we would aim for steady kilometres between 4:30 and 4:45. Which, as with most of our goals, failed miserably.

Our first k was the slowest at five minutes dead - we spent the entirety of it jostling for position and squeezing through tiny gaps on a narrow course. Shortly after clocking such a disappointing opener we overtook some of the Crew Chief's colleagues - a pair of female ultramarathoners whose running CVs were a bit intimidating. We were genuinely worried that they might beat us over the course, and spent the rest of the race nervously looking over our shoulders in case they were catching us... But otherwise we got our heads down and ploughed on, overtaking most of the costumed fundraisers as we found a comfortable pace towards the front of the pack. 

The course winds its way around the roads and footpaths in Glasgow Green, including a lengthy out-and-back along the Clyde, where various rowing clubs were preparing for what looked like a large scale race. In Glasgow of all places. Our own racing instincts were hampered and confused, however, as we fairly swiftly caught the back of the 5k race and found ourselves mixed in with slower fun runners, once again restarting our overtaking mission. Nonetheless we managed to crank out some faster kilometres, gradually speeding up  until we were regularly producing km's between 4:30 and 4:40.

We saw the leaders ahead of us as they switched back after 3k. Two club runners jostled for position, though third place was a good minute or so behind them. We are not talking about a serious race here - more a fun run that a few decent runners had rocked up to for a laugh. As frustrating as it was for us to weave between Mario and Luigi, it must have been incredibly annoying for them.

5km rolled around in a flash as we looped the event village. Despite the ten minute lead afforded to the shorter race, Neil and I would probably have placed quite well in the 5k, as a steady stream of funrunners were still finishing around this point. We peeled off to the right and looped an enormous obelisk to start our second lap, grimly realising that we only had three miles left in which to make something of this race.

The second lap was a change of tone. Due to some dodgy marshalling we overshot one of the turns early on which threw us a little, and when we did find the right path we found ourselves now running against the flow of most runners - 5 and 10k alike. Though this was a sign that we were placing reasonably well, it was a major hindrance to finding a rhythm... 

Sprinting to stay ahead of the woman
overtaking on Neil's right shoulder...

After the second out-and-back our conversation waned entirely. We were accelerating with every passing km, playing cat and mouse with a few individuals who had dared to overtake us. When our respective wives came into view with 2k to go, toting cameras and waving, we could summon little but a grimaced smile. I am sparing you from reproducing that photo. Things were starting to fall apart in that exciting way they do at the end of a short race. Neil told me to go on ahead if I felt like it. I did not feel like it.

Amazingly, we were still overtaking slow 5k runners.

With less than a km to go we grunted an agreement that there would be no competitive sprint finish. We were too tired and feeling too rough for that kind of nonsense. As we entered the final straight, however, a preened and comfortable-looking woman made to overtake us, and like chauvinistic idiots, we cranked up an inevitable sprint for the line. Thinking we may as well go for it, we overtook a couple of other runners too, almost knocking one chap down as we crossed the line. Feel a bit bad about that. 

I had forgotten to stop my watch at the finish, so we queued to get our result from a tent full of timing equipment. When our turn eventually rolled around, we were delighted to discover a self-service computer with a keypad - just key in your race number and it prints a receipt showing your time and position. What a great idea. It wasn't until some days later, however, that we realised that it printed gun time and not chip time, which means we were pleased to upgrade our results from 47:24 to 46:49, and our positions improved by one each. The final results gave us exactly the same time, but for some reason assigned me 49th place and Neil 50th. Can't complain...

A cool idea. Shame it doesn't specify that this is gun time, though.

Now I've said this before, but that probably is it for me in terms of racing in 2012. This was fun - and after some much lengthier goals have been accomplished in 2013 I think I'll revisit the 10k and try to train for it specifically . It would be nice to get a sub-40 run on my PB list...

Happy running

Dave

2012 to date: miles run - 417.5, miles biked - 79.2, metres swum - 3950, races - 5