Where: Walesby Sports club
When: 13th February 2016
Organiser: Hobo Pace
Distance(s): 10 mile (read on)
Marshalling: Loads
Facilities: water/jelly bean/flap jack etc station at 5 miles
Technical: Gun time
Freebies: Running singlet and name engraved medal
Photography http://www.dwmphotography.com/hobo.html
Way back in November, Lucy, a colleague from the Tri club said she was doing this, sounded a hoot so signed up. I was starting my recovery and thought this would be a good ‘shake out’.
December I started back running after an almost 3 month lay off and legs were feeling good albeit extremely slow at about 6 min/km pace - bum.
Day after boxing day and I started coughing and wheezing - chest infection - lasted well into January and then resumed running again. Got in a couple of 5k and 10k training runs, still slow but thought f### it, ready to roll.
Got pre-race email advising that part of the course was flooded so a bit of wading needed. Interesting.
Race day.
Got to the HQ, parked up and met Lucy in the clubhouse. Lucy is awesome, completely mad, the mother of five. Last year at the Clumber Duathlon I egged her to register for Age Group as it was worth a £10 punt. She qualified and went on to get Bronze.
All lined up for the off, the dog running teams yap yapping away excitedly, weather was a bit chilly but not too windy and thankfully dry. For some reason I ended up at the front - I'm the one in yellow top next to Lucy in black with pink sleeves
http://www.dwmphotography.com/v/photos/ ... 7077988204
Then the off. The gazelles, including Lucy, went zooming away and I settled into my pace initially along the road then right turn onto the trail for the first time. After a mile we came upon the flooded section, knee deep for about 50-75 m, cold, then back on the trail.
Got an 'arty' treatment on my photo http://www.dwmphotography.com/v/photos/ ... 7121473004
At about 5 miles the group I was with started to pull away, ah well, no problems. I was keeping my own pace and pleased I had kept up with them thus far. Took a quick drink at the feed station and started back again. Some parts were a bit slippy slidy but otherwise my shoes were coping well. At the 8 mile stage I saw the ones that had pulled away and ever so gradually started to close on them and over the next mile overtook a couple - woohoo. Passed the 9 mile marker, not far to go now ... And then the 10 mile marker?! Kept on, by a hedgerow and then onto the road to the finish, had a young lad in his 20s in my sights and was closing on him but despite a sprintish type of finish from me he crossed the line about 15 m ahead of me.
Met Lucy who had naturally finished miles ahead of me and got 4th woman home. Got our goodies, a run singlet and a medal engraved with your name - that was a first, very organised. Turned out I hadn’t read the pre-race email fully, because of the rain and flooding they had to alter the course slightly and rather than go under 10 miles extended to 10.8 miles.
My time 1:45:58, 99 out of 181 finishers and 12 mins behind Lucy who was 45th. There were no Age Group splits.
I must say it was a good race, loads of volunteers, very friendly and quite a good challenge. Average pace of about 6.17/km was not setting the world on fire but the important thing was I completed the distance, did not get injured and my legs felt OK.
Happy boy
.
