Right Mark - a full race report. You asked for it!
Up at 6.30am, eating porridge, ea & toast by 7am, and out the door by 7.30 - yawn! 2 hours drive to the New Forest, arrived just in time to collect race number, queue for loo etc. 1 mile walk to the start along a crowded narrow pavement so no chance of a warm up jog, then at the start of a forest trail the Start sign could be seen. Rest of my family arrived on their bikes just as we were called to the start so I reluctantly peeled off my fleece jacket. The wind was bitterly cold and I'd struggled to decide what to wear knowing how hot I get in races vs. how cold the wind was! I finally decided on 2 long sleeve tops, no jacket, running tights, headband and gloves.
As we set off, the first 4 miles were fairly unexciting, through dusty trails of tall fir trees. My shoelace came undone in the first mile, but that was the only excitement. The trails were fairly narrow and I was trying to keep to an even pace, between 10:18 (for a 2:15 finish) and 10:32 (to match my Bristol HM time). When I passed the mile 5 marker, my Garmin was only reading 4.8M which was confusing, and it continued to be out all the way round. Hopefully it was just because it lost the satelites under the trees, and not because the course was short!
At mile 6 we emerged onto Beaulieu Heath. The phrase 'the blasted heath' kept crossing my mind, because this was flat, had no trees for shelter, and was just totally windswept. The poor marshalls all looked frozen, but were still managing to smile and shout encouragement. It was really horrible running round here and I was relieved when at mile 8 we dropped down, and onto the off road section. I had a gel here just to make sure I had enough energy for the end of the race.
We had been warned that if the weather was wet then trail shoes would be appropriate. I just wore my road shoes as its been so dry lately. However I still managed to find lots of mud, lots of places where there was no discernible path and you just had to pick your way over it. At one enourmous boggy bit the marshall was directing us to try and jump onto a log and then off the other side, but I couldn't jump that far so he held my hand to help me. What a gent!
From mile 10 the route was beautiful. Through 'proper' forest, sheltered from the wind, over a little bridge over a river, through daffodills. Really pretty. Some uphill bits around mile 11, but I managed to run up them and even passed the group of people I'd been seeing in the distance for the entire race.
The concrete railway bridge was hard on the legs, but as I crossed it I could see the college and knew we were nearly back. As I came round the corner of the building I knew the finish line was just there .... and then I was directed to run round the field before heading for the line (curses!) Just before the last corner the man in front of me collapsed. As I stopped to make sure he was okay, a friend of his ran towards us shouting "Asthmatic! He's asthmatic!" We got him to his feet and ran to the line where the St John's ambulance folk sprinted towards him, delighted to have something to do.(My daughter saw him a little later - sat with a blanket around him, looking fine. Phew!)
Crossing the line the clock said 2:16 something, my Garmin said 2:15:55, and my official time is 2:17 something (because I was held up in the funnel behind the asthmatic man) I'm taking 2:15:54 My garmin finally said I'd run 13.0 miles, so I caught up a little!
Splits were 10:06, 10:11, 9:59, 10:34, 10:41, 10:43, 10:37, 10:40, 10:31, 10:40, 10:23, 11:05, 9:46 Very pleased my last mile was my fastest!
Felt like I was going down with a cold last night - had an awful night's sleep with coughing, so I missed m
