My last achievement of 2012 was completing the 10 mile
Gut Buster multi terrain event hosted by My Sporting Times. The event was
held at Butlers Lands Farm in Mortimer, Berkshire, and in my opinion was
brilliantly organised. It was only £20 to enter which I thought was excellent
value for money.
The site was pretty easy to find with ample parking
(although inventive at times) and I only worried that I might not be able to
get the car out of the mud at the end but all was well. The number of entrants
was relatively small (maybe around 400 total) but around 70 didn’t turn up on
the day! There were quite a few loos but the queue was so long five minutes
from start time that the organisers very kindly started letting some of the
ladies use the toilets in the organisers building which was a huge relief. The
proper coffee van on site (fully working espresso machine – thank you!) was a
nice touch. The atmosphere was cheery and the briefing very jolly.
As well as the 10 mile there was also a 10k route, both of
which started at 9am and followed the same route for about the first 4 miles.
The distance markers for the 10 mile route were in miles and for the 10k route
were in kms. The route split was really well marked and there were loads of
marshals (all in excellent spirit and with a good sense of humour) and marker
tape so I never suspected I was going the wrong way. Because I was towards the
back there were plenty of points where I couldn’t see anyone behind or in front
so this was a big plus. The course itself was mostly off-road, across fields
and farmland with a ford at 1.5 miles (we were encouraged NOT to run through
it) and only around 2.5 miles on roads. Undulating is probably the right word
as I didn’t encounter more than one hill I felt compelled to walk but due to
all the rain we’d had in the area the ground was especially wet and muddy and
therefore so slippery in places that It didn’t feel safe to run, being at the
back of the pack as I was. There were two water stations on each route and some
very welcome mulled wine and mince pies at the finish (free to competitors). We
didn’t get goody bags or t-shirts but did get a really great personalised
medal. You could opt to have your time engraved for an additional charge but I
decided only to have my name added (which was free).
I “ran” in 2:02, was 152nd out of 164 who
completed the 10 mile course, and 51st lady. I wasn’t aiming for any
particular time, and my training plan had this down as a slow run anyway so I
was happy to finish. It gave me a real sense of satisfaction for the rest of
the day, knowing I’d done something active over Christmas.
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