On Sunday I ran the Gala XC race. When I imagined cross country running in the past, this is what I imagined it would be like! If I was to sum up the race in one word, that word would be “muddy”.
We started on a narrow forest trail that climbed slightly uphill. There are few things in running worse than starting with an uphill. It shocks your body into almost immediate capitulation. At this time you really need to use the mental strength exercises to beat your legs and lungs into submission and to force them on. We ran on into some fields on a hillside and wound our way gradually upwards. In places the field was a quagmire, especially near walls where the rain had been halted on it’s way down the hill. And of course the course ran alongside all the walls as they were good route markers!
I passed quite a lot of people on this section of the race. At some point during the last six months I seem to have become accidentally decent at running uphill! Just think if I actually trained for it. I had seen Sinead from HBT pretty much the whole race up until this point, she was always about 5 runners ahead of me. I used her (sorry Sinead) as a target and tried to keep her in sight and eventually to catch up with her. I passed her on this hill/field section. She caught me again shorty afterwards as I crossed the first style, and when I got to the bottom of the hill I looked over my shoulder and she was right behind me. I have trained in a group with Sinead before and I know that she is in the same kind of ball park as me so I made it my target for the race to keep her behind me. Worth noting at this point that on one steep(ish) section of the uphill field, I felt sick. I was pushing hard and I really felt like I might lose my breakfast. I didn’t. I just manned up and got on with it knowing that the downhill was coming soon.
The race had two styles. The second one caused a big bottle neck and some runners decided that instead of waiting, to risk the barbed wire fence instead. I conducted a quick risk analysis and concluded that as ripped shorts was only the SECOND worst thing that could happen to me on the barbed wire fence, that I would wait my turn on the style.
Apparently you were supposed to keep your number for the whole series. Didn't. Made my own.
There were also two streams. In the pre-race briefing we were told that the water feature was quite deep. We weren’t told that there were two water features so when I forded the first stream I thought, “that wasn’t too bad”. It was ankle deep and despite my now soaking wet and cold feet, I thought I had got off lightly. I was mistaken. The actual water feature was indeed quite deep and we had to climb down into it due to the steepness of the bank. It was just below my knees and I couldn’t see the bottom. Leaving the stream there was no rest for the wicked and it was straight uphill again.
The steepest hill was in a wooded section. It was short but really steep. I think most people walked it but I ran it. I passed two runners in front of me who stopped. I almost ran into the back of one of them and I think I might have tutted. Sorry that guy – didn’t mean it. When I passed them going uphill, it was at this point that I believed I was going to finish ahead of Sinead. It was the first time since I passed her ages ago that I had someone between me and her.
There were two points I nearly lost my footing, once I stood on top of a tree root and the slippy, moss covered surface didn’t go well with my studs. The other time was a sharp ninety degree bend on a boardwalk where again my studs were like ice skates. I saw this one coming though and slowed to a near walk for that turn – I learned my lesson at the Dunbar 10 mile race!
This photo doesn't do justice to just how muddy my legs were. They were REALLY muddy.
It was a really tough race and I left nothing out there. One of the marshals told me that I had only 200m to go, but I had nothing left to push on. I think I increased the pace very slightly or maybe even just didn’t slow down any further, but I had no energy left for a sprint – and I tried. As it would turn out, about 100m later the next marshal would tell me that I had only 200m to go!!!
It's a strange thing for grownups to do, run cross country. Seems a bit childish really :-D
