Some people take themselves and their running rather seriously...too seriously in my book. I'm not including professional athletes in this generalisation, but for the vast majority of us, running is a hobby - and so is meant to be fun! Some people train harder than others, some run faster or further or more often than others, but hopefully everyone enjoys it to some extent - or else it becomes rather unsustainable.
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| How else would you dress in Sherwood Forest? |
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| My favourite diet :-) |
I have met some great friends through running - and love the fact that we can all apply ourselves when we want to, but be able to let our hair down and have fun when we want to. With this in mind, I was excited to go down to Sherwood Forest for a weekend of fun organised by my friend Paul (himself a 2:17 marathoner) for his wife's belated 40th birthday. The plan was to do some eating, drinking, chilling and relaxing.....along with a wee bit of running if wished.
The running started on the Friday night for me, as I joined my new Ripley RC mates for something called the "Hairy Helmets Relays". Each team member (4 to a team - mine was Esther, Emily, Jo and myself) does 1 lap of the course (in a park in Derby) before handing on the baton. This was totally out of my comfort zone as each leg was only just over 2 miles long - the first mile was straight up a hill (on grass), before a brief section of path to the top of the park, and then there were some steep descents to negotiate (on grass and mud), before hitting a trail which took you past the changeover area and for a loop of the flat round some neighbouring fields.
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| Coming into the finish with the baton |
I hate fast crowded starts so had specifically requested to avoid the first leg...and was given the anchor leg - eek!!! the pressure!! - but at least it meant I could run parts of the course cheering my teammates on, and see how the handover worked. It was basically carnage as there were hundreds of runners milling around, in club vests or fancy dress (I think I actually ran past a "dinosaur" whilst warming up). When it came to my leg, I had to stand behind the start gantry with others (waiting to run both legs 3 and 4 depending on the speed of their team) and try to spot Jo running in. Then I would hang over a barrier fence and hope she would be able to spot me in order to hand off the baton (the baton contained the timing chip and so had to be carried at all times). Once I grabbed it, I had to negotiate others trying to get theirs, cross the startline and get on with it.
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| Team G&Ts :-) |
I had no idea where I was in the field, as people were going at such different paces, but at least the leading male teams hadn't finished before I started. After my 50m of flat grass "warm up" I turned up the hill and immediately started passing people, on both the grass and the path. The descent was nearly my downfall as I took the wrong line through the first mudbath and nearly ended up skidding down it on my bottom. As I skated around, a man shot past me, having found a much better way to skirt the worst bits, and so I followed his line for the next steep descent. Apart from this man, nobody else seemed to be running faster than I was at this point in the event, so I just concentrated on keeping going, not blowing up and reeling in as many as I could.
When I crossed the line, I was disappointed that my team mates weren't there to greet me, but it turned out that they were still looking out for me at the halfway point as I'd passed by there before they'd got there to cheer. Still, we met up shortly afterwards and got our well-earned drinks (each leg run earnt you a drinks token) and waited to hear the results. When I heard that we'd missed out on the first vet team by 15s (over 58 mins), I berated myself for that bad line across the mud, but it was a team effort - each of us could blame ourselves but instead we celebrated the fun and friendship we had!
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| Karen and I on our way |
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| Our cabin dressed for parkrun (we had 4 cabins taking part) |
After a night of refueling with ethanol back at Sherwood Forest, the next lark of the weekend was Sherwood Pines parkrun. Paul is fond of a bit of fancydress (being well known for his spiderman outfit) and so had requested that we all dress up Robin Hood style (though some costumes are obviously rather easier to run in than others).
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| Paul (AKA Robin Hood) as first finisher |
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| Karen and I coming into the line |
It was so much fun - again there were varying degrees of seriousness with a couple of people racing for the first finisher position, but most people were just there to enjoy themselves (and sweat out the excesses of the previous night), eg I loved seeing a 2:13 marathoner running round with his wife and having a chat. I ran with Karen as it was her first parkrun back after illness and for me, the weekend was all about her. We were both wearing forest wench/merry men outfits, but my flowery girdle stayed on my head better than Karen's cap, so I ended up carrying it for her. I loved being able to look round at the beautiful forest and chat to Karen (and others) as we ran round....and it set us up nicely for the rest of the day partaking in the eating/drinking/being merry part of the weekend.
Rather fewer of us were up and able to take part in the last running adventure of the weekend.....the Ripley 10K (organised by the lovely guys at Ripley RC). We almost missed it due to a sluggish start to the morning, but just made registration in time to get our numbers and head to the start. As usual, I started slowly as others sprinted off - the first part of the course was downhill and so people flew away from me. After a few corners, everything settled down and I could just about see a couple of ladies way ahead in the distance (the leading two had apparently gone off at warp speed ahead of most of the men!!). The first half of the course was mainly downhill (though with a few little lumps along the way) and so I didn't expect to make up many places, but instead focused on not letting the gaps increase any more. On every little rise I would close down a wee bit more.
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| The "hangover 10K" crew |
We had been advised that there were no closed roads (indeed there were some horse out en route as well as the usual traffic) both on entering, in the pre-race email and in the run briefing.....and every marshal we passed reminded us to stay on the pavement. The pavement wasn't the ideal race surface as it was rough underfoot, narrow and overhung with branches at points - the road looked lovely and smooth, but we all obeyed the instructions. All of us except 1 that is - I could see the lady that was in second place determinedly running in the road, even cutting off corners that the footpath wound round the outside of, to the extent that she actually "undertook" the leading lady.
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| The last mile round the houses |
My friends told me that they thought that the race profile would play into my hands, as the second half was mainly uphill. I can't say that I think I was running fast/well, but I did seem to be managing it better than the others. I passed the ladies (they were almost together at this point) at the 4mile mark, but didn't have the energy to mention the road/pavement issue....though I was pleased to pass the aforementioned offender by running past her on the rough pavement whilst she was in the smooth road. I wasn't sure if they'd pass me later on in the race, but as we were continuing uphill I refused to look back.
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| With the mayor |
The last mile and a half wound round a housing estate (and so everyone was running in the roads by then), and it was nice to get individual support from the marshals (many of whom had been at the relays or at Martha's Vineyard). I was following Matt (from the local club) on this section as I guessed he'd know the best route round the cars/kerbs etc, whereas he knew I was behind him and so was trying to keep away from me (there was no chance of me catching him anyway as he's way quicker than I am). I nearly missed the final run in, as I thought we had to run down the same road as we started on before turning into the park, but we actually had to enter the park and turn sharply to run down the side of it behind a high hedge. Luckily, I was still switched on enough to get it right and finished with a final lap of the park...ending up running a much better time than I'd thought I could (as everyone said it was a slow course anyway, despite the previous day's "fuelling" until the early hours)!
I'm afraid to say I couldn't help myself afterwards - when the next lady finished and was congratulated by her friends (she was from another local club), I commented that I had thought she must have been from overseas as she ignored every marshal's instruction to stay on the pavement (which actually risks the race licence, and probably cost the next lady a place as they were only a couple of seconds apart at the end).....oops!
