Winter Tanner 2015 (30 miles)
11th January
2015

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Official Result

Noel Jones 7.19.00
James Adams 7.19.00

 

On the assumption that my foot might be better I booked the Winter Tanners a while ago. Winter Tanners is however off road, or perhaps I need to remember to be more accurate and say mixed terrain. There was a 20 mile option so if it came to it I could take the short cut in the 30 mile instructions and do just the 20.James Adams and I drove down and James did a fine job of navigating us around the North Circular on his iPhone after we say signs advising the M25 was closed and we got there in plenty of time for the 9:30 start cutoff.

My previous times for WT have been about 6:33 and 6:58. Last year was a mud fest, this year the weather had been pretty grim so it was likely to be a repeat performance, but you can never tell because it is a different route each year. James is a faster runner than me and I am still injured but he said he’d run with me and so we set off together. About a quarter mile in someone passed us saying he’d forgotten his glasses and then eagle eyed James spotted a pair on the ground. James ran back with them and indeed they were the missing pair, dropped rather than forgotten.

I was keeping running for the most part despite it seeming to be mostly uphill. 8 miles in 1.5 hours. Not too far off 6 hours. Then the hills got bigger, and the mud got muddier. We got to half marathon distance in about 3 hours and 6 hours was looking to be out of the window. Of course it didn't help that we misinterpreted the instructions not once, but twice within about 2 miles. We ended up at the top of a hill and could see no one except a couple out for a walk and they hadn't passed anyone. None of the instructions made sense so we back tracked. On resuming the route and going up via the correct path we met the walkers again. A bit later on we went down to the bottom of a hill and found ourselves in a car park with no sign of anyone. I was kicking myself about this because just at the point we went off course my sub conscious had given my conscious self a prod to say I had no idea if this was the right route and I just kept running. Before back tracking again we met the same walkers for a third time. If we saw them again we decided we would just follow them. All told we lost about 20 minutes dithering but not too much damage in terms of extra miles.

The weather was proving to be great. Clear skies giving excellent views. This was a good day to be out in the country. At some point I sat on a stile to sort out my socks. A walker approached as I finished so I jumped up to be over the stile and be in front of him on the narrow path ahead and promptly fell off the stile. I'd put my hand on the fence next to it for balance without seeing the electric wire. Eventually after a particularly steep calf killing section we got to the 2nd checkpoint to be greeted by a couple of runners we had passed earlier. We stayed together for most of the remainder of the run and for a while there was a group of 6 or 7 of us exchanging banter. We reclaimed some respect by stopping them from running off down the wrong path.

I found the next 10 miles a bit tough and had to take more rest breaks but I still managed a good proportion of running. The emergency gel came out when I realised the tank was empty and was likely the reason for me struggling. The last checkpoint produced hot drinks which was fabulous. They also had dried apricots which I had about 10 of and then heard they were the last of the apricots. Sorry! They were good though and they really did pick me up for the last 5 miles. As we got closer to home my pace picked up, helped by it being largely downhill. We had just one remaining last hill which was a bit nasty right at the end before finding ourselves back where we started.

We just avoided needing head torches. 7:19 on my Garmin. A Winter Tanners personal worst time but a great day out.

 

Noel