I don’t know whether it’s the skier in me that finds it OK to have the upper body pointing in one direction and the legs in another, but as a runner I find it most disconcerting! Many times today traction was such that despite best efforts from my legs, gravity would dictate where the rest of me was heading.
Mud!
There was lots of it. This was serious off-roading!
Just as the Eskimos have many words for snow, mere ‘mud’ doesn’t do justice to the myriad varieties of the earthy stuff. Sure ‘mud’ does suffice for the (excuse the pun) garden variety of stuff that I meet now and then on my training runs, and there was plenty of ‘mud’ today, but let me add a few more terms to our understanding:
Popplecrack – named for the sound it makes as you run over/through it. A sticky mud which grips the shoes and make some entertaining noises.
Farting – this may be the same as popplecrack, but is 9 inches deeper. It farts loudly as you step in it.
Barefoot – heavier than farting mud, but just as deep. If your shoes aren’t on tight enough you will emerge barefoot at the other end of it.
China clay – self explanatory really, and just maybe geologically accurate.
Facial quality – closely related to china clay, but unbelievably smooth and creamy. You just want to reach down and slap it on. Absolutely impossible to get any grip.
Baileys – A thinner shallower version of facial quality and mercifully grippy. A thin layer of Bailey’s Irish Cream over firm ground.
Black tar – again self explanatory – horrible.
This race was never going to be easy with all the hills, but at least I hoped the going would be firm after the lack of rain recently. How wrong I was! Did I mention it rained all day?
At the start I met a local celebrity:
Richard Williams, the Ocean FM breakfast DJ. He was being escorted round by a friend of mine: your own escort - the mark of true celebrity! I must confess I only half knew who he was – I’m a Chris Moyles listener. I’ve seen Richard’s name on the side of buses, so I suppose that counts as celebrity?
Things started well with small helpings of ‘mud’ and ‘china clay’, but as we climbed a hill into cloud we lost sight of the runners ahead. Thus began another element of the day’s madness: the extra miles I had to run after a couple of wrong turns. There were a fair few marshals, but on a 20-mile course it is clearly difficult to have marshals on every turn. You therefore rely on the many bits of red and white tape attached to the trees and fences. As we ran across the field in the mist we saw a group emerging from the mist downhill from us running in the opposite direction – the runners ahead had lost their way crossing the field and had missed the exit onto the South Downs Way. We followed the group along the hedge parallel to the proper track, and eventually found our way back onto the correct route. Club-mate Graham was there to greet us at the stile, commenting on the gap that had opened up ahead of us after the mix-up. That gap was going to create more problems!
On we trudged through the china clay, trying not to fall as we slid our way downhill – many succumbed! The field turned left at the tape attached to a gate, and naturally I followed. We made our way down a concrete farm path and half a mile on I started to sense the ‘oh dear, we’re lost’ body language. There was no red and white tape anywhere to be seen. One or two were turning round and heading back, but the consensus appeared to be that as there were dozens and dozens of runners ahead, some of whom surely knew where they were going, then we may as well follow. Baaaaaa!!
After a mile or two of tarmac I realised we had definitely gone wrong, but still people were pushing on undeterred. I then met 2 runners coming the opposite way. Oh dear!
“We’ve had enough of this! None of them have any idea where they’re going”
I asked them if they really thought that adding at least 3 miles onto their run was a good idea, repeating my assertion that someone must have an inkling that they were heading in the right direction, when along came a couple of Pompey Joggers (the organising club). Fortunately one of them, Colin, although clearly not blessed with sound navigation skills, did seem to possess some leadership qualities, and insisted that he was ‘fairly sure’ the road was heading towards one of the checkpoints.
“Come on folks, at last we have a leader” I shouted. “He’s Pompey Joggers, so if he’s wrong we can get our money back. Of course, as it’s for charity, you will then have to donate your money back, but the principle’s there”
This seemed to placate the doubters.
Fortunately we were soon at the 6 mile checkpoint. My GPS read 7.5 miles. Oh dear!
Yes I had GPS! As I’ve never seen a course map though, the ‘P’ for ‘Positioning’ didn’t really count for much. Please organisers, can we have a map published? Better still can we have the lat/long of the checkpoints so we can program waypoints into our GPS’s?
On we plodded, meeting a marshal who suggested that the local schoolkids had messed around with the course markers. I doubt this is true, but it’s a good get out.
Malcolm had now caught up with me and we were playing cat and mouse, running at our own paces, me desperately trying to keep my heart rate down and keep this at training-run effort.
On we plodded encountering more variations of mud, including the horrible black tar. I didn’t think the ramblers would be impressed with me splashing them with farting mud, but they seemed happy enough and offered some words of encouragement.
We then encountered the ‘facial quality’ mud – unbelievably slippery.
“Beware of the barbed wire along the path” shouted someone.
But the barb wire is way over…Aagh!I soon understood the warning as my legs tried to run to the left but my body continued downhill to the right towards the barbed wire.
“It was far worse last year” commented Malcolm.
!!!!!?
The worst mud of the run, of the barefoot variety, came just before the big climb up Butser Hill, the highpoint of the run. It was unbelievably deep! I’d stopped earlier to tighten my laces after nearly losing my shoes – I’m glad I did! It was about a foot deep in places, with deep deep ruts from vehicles. What sort of vehicle had come this way? Surely only a tractor could manage this? I can’t imagine a Land Rover coping without a winch. I imagined a Porsche Cayenne trying to get through. “Hello, is that the AA?...yes the mud’s half way up the doors…my wife’s lost her stilettos…”
click “…hello?... hello?”
“It was a lot deeper last year” said Malcolm.
!!!!!!!!?
On up Butser – Baileys mud, but good traction – and on over the top onto a few miles of road down into Clanfield. That’s the first time I’ve ever asked when we get back off-road. Tarmac is not so comfortable in flat fell shoes!
A couple of miles of off-road through the woods and a bit of popplecrack, and we were done. 21.5 miles of fun!
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| Susie | Malcolm |
Did I mention it was muddy?
