On Tuesday I wnet for a long run and it was the first since the marathon. I have done stuff since, an 11 miler, an 8, a short one and a parkour session but this was the first long one.
It was quite a learning experience.
I wanted to go to Decathlon to get a bag and the race route goes right past Decathlon so I thought I'd run a section of the route. Decathlon and back isn't far from my house but I ran over to Bulwell in order to pick up the Robin Hood Way through Bulwell Hall to Watnall and then on to Giltbrook. Now the UR (race organiser) website says that the trail isn't always signposted well so I took a map. In order to avoid carrying the whole map I photocopied the relevant bit. They really weren't wrong about the lack of signage though. The trail was hard to follow and its not helped by the fact that the Robin Hood Way is quite fractured; there are little spurs that go just a few hundred meters in order to take in a village meaning there are places where the Way actually has three signs all going in different directions. There are also places where the signs just stop and there are places where the trail goes in very unexpected directions.
Well obviously I got lost, well went wrong anyway. I turned of the road to enter the Bulwell hall section of trail and it was going fine when I ended up at the Nottingham Golf Center. There the signs stopped. I ended up going in completely the wrong direction and I couldn't figure out the map (which is odd because my map reading is usually excellent). I asked someone where this road went and it he said it went the wrong way for me. I ran round a bit hoping I was going the right way to come upon Roll Royce air strip – I wasn't. In the end I used the GPS in my phone to get a location and once I'd done that I realised which way I needed to go and everything was fine. I also realised what had gone wrong in the first place. I'd not photocopied enough map and I wasn't actually on the map yet, the person had asked for directions must have been a clown because the road I asked about was the one I wanted and went no where near Bulwell like he said.
Anyway I was back going and I didn't go wrong again. I got onto a section of trail which I've run regularly and came out at Watnall road motorway bridge, I crossed the bridge and came across a UR sticker left over from last years race. I was on the map now so I didn't have any problems but the trail started doing strange things. It plunged across a field in a seemingly random direction, there wasn't really a footpath as such but I was definatly right according to the map and the footpath signposts at either end of the field. Next the path passed behind a row of houses and the hedge was really over grown meaning I had to run in a sort of crouched position.
Lesson One
There are many places where passing people will be very hard or impossible. This means I'll have to be careful in the race to pick a good pace from the start. If you get to one of the narrow sections behind a slower runner then it might be impossible to pass and therefore you'd loose time. The flip side is that if you got to one of those narrow places in front of a faster runner you might end up either running faster than you should so as not to hold anyone up, or stopping completely in order to let them pass.
Leaving Watnall on the path to Giltbrooke there were some very undulating sections with some steep uphills that I'll proberly walk on race day. I think this is ok and I think the variety suits me so I'm not really worried about it. There are lots of stiles at this point also small bridges over streams and sections of duck boards over boggy ground. At one point, still on the official trail, I got to a stream where a footbridge was shown on the map to find no way of getting over the stream except jumping. I guess the race will take a little detour round this section.
As I said there are lots of stiles here, sections crossing small fields, and intersecting paths. I've done walks on this kind of path lots of times and navigating is easy; you can hold the map up, look at it as you go, and navigate almost meter by meter. The OS maps are so good and you're going at a speed that this is possible. When running its quite different though you can't keep such a close eye on the map and therefore I regularly had to stop to map read.
Lesson Two
I want to make sure I am very familiar with this section of trail so that I don't have to spend time map reading or get caught out. I don't think I can rely on course markers (there might not be any) or having people to follow because we'll probably be so strung out that I might be running alone by this point and even if I am with someone they might not know the way.
I turned off the trail to head down to Decathlon and vaulted some rails on the way.
Lesson Three
it became obvious at this point that I'd totally misjudged this run. I knew the distance, I knew it was going to be around 17 miles, and yet somehow I'd only prepared myself (mentally and practically) for a much shorter run. I'd gone much too fast so far I was whacked, I'd one at the kind of pace for a ten miler and still had 7 to go. I'd also only taken enough drink for ten miles. The lesson is think more before setting off.
Lesson Four
I doubt I can make my time goal of 4 hrs 47 mins. I know its a bit early to be defeatist and I will make an all out effort for it but having seen the kind of terrain I won't be upset if I don't make that time. Even on this relatively short stretch there were so many stiles and if there's a bunch of runners there could even be a queue. We'd had some rain the day before I did this run and the trails were so greasy that there were times I had to slow down because of that. Even if I manage (like I hope to) to run the whole course in stages before hand there may still be places that I'll have to stop to map read.
Well after a quick purchase in Decathlon I set off home already exhausted due to the problems of lesson three. I went the quickest way back but I had to walk at some stages. This was the only time I've hit the wall and, although I have lost some fitness since the marathon, really its due to not thinking the run through properly before hand.
So here's the commencing hard work – especially if I have any chance of hitting the time goal.
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