What Have I Let Myself In For?

With our scheduled race at Edwinstowe cancelled we brave the snow which after yesterdays rain has now mainly turned to sheet ice, to travel over to Stoke or more precisely Newcastle under Lyme for this morning Newcastle Dales Dash 10k. There are no ‘dales’ in Newcastle under Lyme by the way. ‘Dales’ is the name of the organiser.

We’re in the Apedale Valley area of Chesterton for the seventh running of the 10k which is an off road race within Apedale Community Country Park which is on the site of an old mine. Past years apparently have been very very muddy. No chance of that this year, the ground is frozen solid.

We park up and skate up the road to registration. Oh dear. What have I let myself in for? I hope it really is all off road and there aren’t any stretches of iced up tarmac like this to negotiate.

The start is actually on the road, so I take the first stretch easy before we enter the park itself and up the first of many inclines. I would describe the route as undulating. That's putting it mildly. This was no jog in the park.



Actually I take the whole thing easy, not worth breaking my neck for a fast time. Despite people with ponytails and/or zimmer frames passing me. This would not be a PB friendly course in any weather.

I have to give the organisers credit for putting this race on. We needed a run and they provided it, with (sleigh) bells on. I love the snow but it’s just been too icy to run or cycle. I've even seriously considered going to the gym. Only considered mind. So far.



There was snow and ice everywhere but it was generally grippy enough even in the normal trainers that I wore. Where the ice was too bad there were marshals making sure you stayed away from the worse bits.

The final stretch was back along the entrance road, which had defrosted a bit by then. Unfortunately we had to run past our car which meant Doggo cheered me nosily all the way along the home straight. I could hear MD joining in, although he was in his ‘box’ and couldn’t see what he was barking at, not that that seems to deter him.

All in all a friendly race, a challenging course, hilly but rewarding and not a bad T-shirt at the end. Although they did run out of the smaller sizes much to L’s frustration.



(More photos available from www.racephotos.org.uk)

My time was awful, over 48 minutes, but I blame the conditions and I’ve no idea if the course was an accurate 10k or not. I suspect it was long and there weren’t any mile or km markers to break it down. The absence of which would have really annoyed me had I been after a decent time.

Afterwards I warm myself up with coffee in the car whilst L goes in search of something to accompany it and returns with two huge chunks of chocolate cake.

Then we head home where after quickly dropping L off I head back out to the dog club AGM. I have agreed to go on the committee next year, for my sins. I may be regretting it already as there was a three way argument between two existing committee members and a third who wished to rejoin. A very juvenile 'I can’t work with them' argument ensued. Children please. What have I let myself in for?

(Sunday 5th December)

Idea Theft

It’s a touch cold when we arrive in Shepshed for the Shepshed 7 race and it’s not even as if it’s a crack of dawn start. Kick-off isn’t until 11am.



I ran this race three years ago and didn’t particularly enjoy it, too much off road for me. Nice smooth tarmac is what I like. So I haven’t been back since. L though has never done it, so it’s a nice treat for her... I think she’s also taking it quite seriously, right down to the aerodynamic sports bra. Think Madonna in Vogue. Red hair and now Madonna gear, she’ll be singing next. It does looks good though, on as well as off, but I digress.

Looking back at my performance in 2007, I put in some cracking split times, well suicidal ones and I feel well intimidated by myself of three years ago.

This week I have split the dogs up in the car, to try to prevent them egging each other on in a chorus of howling. It kind of works. MD appears mute, which is slightly unusual, ok very unusual, but Doggo makes a pretty good attempt at going solo.



Then we line up at the start among the impressive 536 entries. The course, to me, is a lap around the muddy playing field followed by roughly half a mile downhill, before about a mile on the flat and then uphill for the remaining two through a quite picturesque private country estate. Seems more up than down to me, which is perhaps why I didn’t like it much last time. And then we do it all again, as this is a two lapper.

As expected, at mile one, I’m already well down on my splits from 2007 but my pace isn’t too shifty. I catch up a chap who is wearing a special running vest that tells us he is doing ‘50 races in his 50th year’ and that this one is race number three. Ah, L won’t be happy when I tell her, that's idea theft, he’s pinched her idea. He’s also got the dates of his 50th year on there and as he was 49 right at the start of October, I reckon he’s already a little off the pace. It's five weeks in and this is only race number three. I pass him and wonder how I’m going to break the news to L. As I say she won’t be happy.

Then when he later re-overtakes me, I’m not happy either.

As I climb up the hill in the final mile, I pass the 10k point and it’s pleasing to see I’m actually faster than last week and that’s with saving a bit for the last .8 of a mile. It’s still in the 42’s though, so I’m not totally ecstatic about it.

The race goes ok. 68th I think. Over a minute slower than 2007 but I expected that and I did have a few beers last night, not that they seemed to hold me back.

It’s a well organised race with a nice technical t-shirt that I will actually wear and most importantly it’s not red. Well mine’s ok, I pick a medium and it’s a perfect fit. L’s t-shirt choice doesn’t go quite so well, they’re all out of smalls and her medium turns out to be blank, with no logo. In fact all the remaining mediums turn out to be blank, so I give her mine and grab a large for myself. Gallant or what.

We head home and after a hot bath take Daughter with us for Sunday Lunch. Hobgoblin is on at our local which is a cruel trick for a Sunday.

Daughter goes out later, so with the dogs comatose and of course Son in Warwick we have a quiet house all evening. Which brings back memories. Those were the days, before dog ownership and children who stay up until midnight.

(Sunday 7th November)

Wide Boys

I had a bit of a dilemma between two 10k runs today. In my newfound role as a race winner... the Long Clawson 10k looked intriguing. The winning time was over 41 minutes last year... but it’s off road, so perhaps it’s a tough cross country course or maybe it's just badly measured. More importantly L enquires about whether there are t-shirts or cakes? There aren’t. Being Long Clawson you’d expect free cheese but that doesn’t appear to be the case either.

Then there’s the Long Bennington 10k which has a t–shirt on offer and is also all road running which should suit me better, I hate off road. It’s also described as flat so it could be PB territory, if I’ve recovered from Friday’s run that is. I’ll just have to content myself with going back to being mid-field. There’s also another thing that might harm my chances of going for a PB, it’s blisteringly hot.

In the end the heat doesn’t bother me that much; oddly it gets to L more than me. I manage a steady if not spectacular pace all the way around, due to my tired legs and come in three minutes slower than my last 10k run but in 15th I think, so not bad.

On the way home I buy some new running shoes with the vouchers I won the other week. The staff check my running style on a treadmill and tell me that I don’t overpronate, contradicting my physio.

I shun my usual Asics and buy some very expensive New Balance shoes, the cost of which nullify the effect of the vouchers but they felt good, so worth a go. They’re a lot lighter than my Asics.

Then back home we chill out a bit and then just as we're getting ready to walk down to the now done-up Willoughby, now renamed the Wollaton, for Sunday Lunch in the sunshine, a couple of wide boys, who are probably gypsies, turn up on my doorstep and offer to cut my trees for me, cheaply.

At first though their idea of cheap isn’t my idea of cheap but once their fee has tumbled to something far cheaper than what I had quoted last year, I let them loose on the job. Big mistake. It soon becomes apparent that they have neither the equipment nor the knowhow to do a decent job. After I have sent them back several times to make a better job of it I lose patience and pay them off purely to get rid of them. Then I find they’d dumped a lot of the cuttings in my garden waste bin after promising to dispose of everything themselves, in some lay-by somewhere no doubt. So I have to haul them back to empty that. Well at least we've got our front tree topped, that needed doing. Even if it isn’t that neat.

By the time we get down the pub, Sunday lunch is finished but we still get an excellent meal and to my surprise good beer. The local Magpie Best is very nice indeed.