In 2014 I entered 13 events - including the infamous Marathon Des Sables - and ran over 600 competitive miles. I'm not sure I'll manage quite as many miles in 2015 - a hundred and fifty in a week does tend to boost that figure somewhat - but so far I've entered 10 events with a total mileage of over 400 miles... There are at least two more I'm hoping to add to the list for almost 150 more so I'll probably get quite close!
Anyway the reason for this blog entry isn't to cast further doubt on my sanity but to report on my first event of 2015 - which in itself brings my sanity into doubt...
My first event of 2015 was quite low key and didn't come with a medal or t-shirt but then the entry fee was only a tenner and I did get a lot of jelly babies, custard creams and coke for that so I reckon it was pretty good value for money at 2.62 miles/pound. Of course as you might guess I was going to get much better value than that...
So to the event - those that followed my pre-MDS exploits might recall that at the end of 2013 I ran 20 miles or more for 5 consecutive days and that this started with a little navigational event called 'The Festive Frolic'. Well Ian (the organiser) was back with a new challenge, a navigational event which, if completed by the shortest route, would be a marathon. It had even been accepted as a qualifying event for the 100 marathon club.
Now as most of you know I consider it a success if I navigate to the end of my garden without getting lost (it's not a big garden) so you might ask why I would sign up for an event on which getting lost was a virtual certainty. Well there are a number of reasons which I will try and explain later...
It was for these reasons I found myself in a pub at 8:30 on a Saturday morning and not due to some terrible alcohol problem, honestly. I checked in and was given a card with half a dozen points to plot on it and a map. I had my own full colour map but I prefer to mark up the black and white copies Ian supplies as I find a full OS map a bit of a handful while running - also no rain was forecast so a repeat of the previous frolic where I stood and watched my map dissolve was unlikely. I marked my map and gave it to Ian for checking. I was very pleased that apparently I was the only person to have correctly located CP2 - this was somewhat tempered by my failure to correctly locate an entire car park which contained the first water stop.
Anyway shortly before 9 we all went out into the carpark for a pre-race briefing after which Katie - Ian's daughter - counted us down and we were off! As I said this was a navigational event so there was no 'right' or 'wrong' way (not strictly true in my case but you know what I mean) as everyone was free to decide how much trail and how much road they wanted to run and almost immediately the field split as some went for the possibly faster road route while I went with those taking the shorter trail route. I wondered how well the road runners got on as the section of road I had to run to the trail was slippery to say the least - it would turn into a crisp clear day, perfect for running, but at 9 'o' clock in the morning there was still a fair amount of black ice about.
I successfully located CP1 and CP2 and dutifully clipped my route card. CP3 was in a large car park on Danbury Common. In fact it was such a large car park I managed to sort of go into orbit around it before eventually successfully negotiating re-entry (well entry anyway) and met up with Ian again who supplied biscuits and water as well as another route card. The last point on the first card was at 'Ford' but we weren't going there, it was a red herring designed to confuse. This was a shame as the ford was one of the very few places I actually knew the location of - mainly from getting lost near it on the previous Frolic.
After some dithering about deciding whether to leave by the road - which went the wrong way but I was confident I could follow it - or a footpath - right direction, but could I keep on it? - I left the car park and went off to find the two grid references that would lead to a pub in Woodham Mortimer where Darren would be waiting with more biscuits and water and the all-important next route card. This all went very smoothly apart from trying to decide which telegraph pole number I was meant to write down. Ian had more checkpoints than clippers and so at some points there was the answer to a question rather than a clipper. As the idea is to prove you have visited the point and not to catch you out I wasn't too worried about getting it 'wrong' and took a photograph anyway to prove I was there just in case.
It was at Woodham Mortimer I started running with Pete, a much quicker runner than me who had twisted his ankle earlier and so was down to my pace for a while. We had a very pleasant conversation while hunting down dates on obelisks, clippers, brewery names and completely missing a footpath. Chatting is great and passes the time nicely but you do need to keep an eye on where you are going!
The route took us back to the very first checkpoint of the day and on to the pub we had started at. Frolic half completed - I thought...
It was at this point that Pete - after marking his map up with the next set of checkpoints - decided to do the sensible thing and drop out. We had finished the leg with Dave and Glynn, couple of real ultra runners with several 100 milers under their belts. We would run together for the rest of the Frolic and after several miles Dave and I would realise we had run the end of the Saffron Trail together too!
The next leg turned out to be an 'out and back' to the car park I had such trouble finding in the morning... However the only navigational error we made was on the way out where we missed a fork in a footpath and added around half a mile to our route - annoying but not disastrous as we quickly worked out where we had gone wrong and got back on track. Dave and I were also amused to realise that some real Saffron Trail deja vu was occurring as part of the route was along a section of the Saffron Trail we had previously run together.
We reached the car park without any further mishaps and started plotting the route back when we quickly realised it was the route there in reverse. At least we would get the right footpath this time. I had managed to stop my watch at some point in the day and so wasn't reading quite the right mileage, however I was confident enough that about a mile from the pub and the finish I called Sharon to come and pick me up. Fortunately - for reasons that will soon become clear - she was already on her way...
We triumphantly handed our route cards in - and were given another one! There were still just over four miles to go, were we going back out we were asked? Too right we were, I was still fit and wasn't going to get a DNF for the sake of 4ish miles - even if Sharon wasn't going to be amused... As it turned out she found it very amusing and chatted to people that really had finished in the pub while the three of us completed our last lap of the Little Baddow countryside.
We arrived in a joint eighth and last place, right on the cut-off time but out of 25 entrants, 21 started and only 10 completed the whole course so I prefer to think of it as a top ten finish rather than last place.
So there was no medal, no t-shirt, I knew I'd get lost and I was expecting to finish last anyway so why did I do it? Oh, and it was very cold, wet and muddy. There are a number of reasons. Firstly it isn't always about the bling. The Event cost £10 and you got two of that back when you finished towards a drink at the bar so expecting a medal and/or t-shirt would be optimistic to say the least. Second, plotting your own route, running and navigating is hard. You may not believe this but actually I'm quite good with a map, it's navigating and running I find a challenge so events like this help my navigational skills which in turn helps me on the events where I have to follow a route. Thirdly, I get to try out new routes I can run after the event. Finally Ian and his team put a lot of effort into the event and they make it different and enjoyable so I want to support it and encourage them to continue the Frolic into 2016.
So there you have it, a 'Personal Worst' for a 'marathon' - actually around 31 miles, wet and muddy, no medal and last place - where do I sign up for next year's event?
I successfully located CP1 and CP2 and dutifully clipped my route card. CP3 was in a large car park on Danbury Common. In fact it was such a large car park I managed to sort of go into orbit around it before eventually successfully negotiating re-entry (well entry anyway) and met up with Ian again who supplied biscuits and water as well as another route card. The last point on the first card was at 'Ford' but we weren't going there, it was a red herring designed to confuse. This was a shame as the ford was one of the very few places I actually knew the location of - mainly from getting lost near it on the previous Frolic.
After some dithering about deciding whether to leave by the road - which went the wrong way but I was confident I could follow it - or a footpath - right direction, but could I keep on it? - I left the car park and went off to find the two grid references that would lead to a pub in Woodham Mortimer where Darren would be waiting with more biscuits and water and the all-important next route card. This all went very smoothly apart from trying to decide which telegraph pole number I was meant to write down. Ian had more checkpoints than clippers and so at some points there was the answer to a question rather than a clipper. As the idea is to prove you have visited the point and not to catch you out I wasn't too worried about getting it 'wrong' and took a photograph anyway to prove I was there just in case.
It was at Woodham Mortimer I started running with Pete, a much quicker runner than me who had twisted his ankle earlier and so was down to my pace for a while. We had a very pleasant conversation while hunting down dates on obelisks, clippers, brewery names and completely missing a footpath. Chatting is great and passes the time nicely but you do need to keep an eye on where you are going!
The route took us back to the very first checkpoint of the day and on to the pub we had started at. Frolic half completed - I thought...
It was at this point that Pete - after marking his map up with the next set of checkpoints - decided to do the sensible thing and drop out. We had finished the leg with Dave and Glynn, couple of real ultra runners with several 100 milers under their belts. We would run together for the rest of the Frolic and after several miles Dave and I would realise we had run the end of the Saffron Trail together too!
The next leg turned out to be an 'out and back' to the car park I had such trouble finding in the morning... However the only navigational error we made was on the way out where we missed a fork in a footpath and added around half a mile to our route - annoying but not disastrous as we quickly worked out where we had gone wrong and got back on track. Dave and I were also amused to realise that some real Saffron Trail deja vu was occurring as part of the route was along a section of the Saffron Trail we had previously run together.
We reached the car park without any further mishaps and started plotting the route back when we quickly realised it was the route there in reverse. At least we would get the right footpath this time. I had managed to stop my watch at some point in the day and so wasn't reading quite the right mileage, however I was confident enough that about a mile from the pub and the finish I called Sharon to come and pick me up. Fortunately - for reasons that will soon become clear - she was already on her way...
We triumphantly handed our route cards in - and were given another one! There were still just over four miles to go, were we going back out we were asked? Too right we were, I was still fit and wasn't going to get a DNF for the sake of 4ish miles - even if Sharon wasn't going to be amused... As it turned out she found it very amusing and chatted to people that really had finished in the pub while the three of us completed our last lap of the Little Baddow countryside.
We arrived in a joint eighth and last place, right on the cut-off time but out of 25 entrants, 21 started and only 10 completed the whole course so I prefer to think of it as a top ten finish rather than last place.
So there was no medal, no t-shirt, I knew I'd get lost and I was expecting to finish last anyway so why did I do it? Oh, and it was very cold, wet and muddy. There are a number of reasons. Firstly it isn't always about the bling. The Event cost £10 and you got two of that back when you finished towards a drink at the bar so expecting a medal and/or t-shirt would be optimistic to say the least. Second, plotting your own route, running and navigating is hard. You may not believe this but actually I'm quite good with a map, it's navigating and running I find a challenge so events like this help my navigational skills which in turn helps me on the events where I have to follow a route. Thirdly, I get to try out new routes I can run after the event. Finally Ian and his team put a lot of effort into the event and they make it different and enjoyable so I want to support it and encourage them to continue the Frolic into 2016.
So there you have it, a 'Personal Worst' for a 'marathon' - actually around 31 miles, wet and muddy, no medal and last place - where do I sign up for next year's event?
