21st July: Spartan

The Fairlands Valley Challenge is an event held annually by the Fairlands Valley Spartans - possibly one of the coolest names for a running club you'll ever come across. I had planned on running this last year but with the whole Bernard thing it was one of the runs that fell by the way-side.

Unfortunately this 10th marathon is the first that I can say was one I did not enjoy as a running experience... I'll not beat around the bush, but I'll try and be positive as I can!

The day started off inauspiciously... I woke up and left on time, the van was driving fine as I sped along the motorway towards Stevenage. Having just merged on to the M25 from the M3 I had the sudden realisation... My trainers were still in the hallway! A quick glance at the time and to return for them would cost an hour without allowing for any traffic so this was not an option. I was going to have to run the marathon in the footwear I was sporting at the time: walking shoes. Still I've been told of one guy (from a finisher at the South Downs) who runs marathons in flip-flops and board-shorts, so if he can manage that then running in a clumpy pair of stiff walking treads shouldn't be too tricky.

The perfect trainers for a marathon.

After this awesome start, things just seemed to get better from there. Driving round the M25 in the fast lane just before my turning, I overtook an HGV which was in the slow lane. As I pulled level with the trailer, I watched the cab bounce over a piece of paving slab that was lying in the carriageway. As several tons of metal rolled over it at 60mph, the wheel of the cab then shot the piece up and backwards straight towards me. There was nothing I could do. I just sat there carrying on driving as I watched it spin through the air towards me… And straight in to the passenger light cluster of the van. Unsurprisingly there was an almighty bang as the light exploded with the impact spreading glass out in to the slipstream and over the top of the van. Fortunately no lights came on the dashboard warning of imminent breakdown so I continued with the drive to the event base.

Parking up at the school in Stevenage where the run is staged I emerged from the van to inspect the damage. Expecting to see some broken glass I was confronted with the following: Nothingness. Where the light had been there was now a gaping hole with loose cables and bulb holders dangling. Fortunately it seemed the light took all the impact and the fuse box behind it was totally unscathed, as was the radiator just to the left, and the flapping sound I could hear after the impact was just the cables being buffeted in the slipstream.

Something's missing I think.

Just as well I was driving a van as if it was an ordinary car then that paving slab would have gone straight through the windscreen! so on to Ebay it was when I returned to order-up the parts to repair it myself! After all it was only 2 lights so it was a case of just unscrewing what was left of the mountings of the destroyed one and putting the new ones in and attaching the bulb holders. All the same its was another £70 I could have done without spending.

The event base was a brand new school with state-of-the-art everything, far removed from the drafty brick and plasterboard affair that I went to which lost the roof of one of the blocks in a storm, then was partially destroyed by the arson efforts of 'Jude the Dude' as well as one time sitting there watching in the middle of a French exam as the windows began to fall out of the 2nd floor classroom and had to be temporarily tied in place with the cord for the venetian blinds just to prevent a disaster!.. To walk around this building was a pleasure and made you think how fortunate the kids that go there are - not that any of them will be seeing that way as let's face it, school sucks for the vast majority of teenagers no matter how good the facilities are!

Registered and changed I went back to the van which was parked by the start line and read a little as I tucked in to some breakfast granola washed down with an energy drink. I took the time to peruse the route as laid out in the instructions: 4 sides of A4 of poorly explained directions, with a statement that there will be NO marking of the course and NO marshalling of the route so all you had was the text on the paper to decipher and translate in to what you were passing by on foot as you ran along. This was like a very poorly organised exercise in orienteering - at least if you sign up for that then you have a map and a compass and at each indicated mark you get co-ordinates for the next leg!

I sat and watched the start for those doing the ultra course and the marathon hike - they offer all standard distances from the ultra down at this event, plus the choice of hiking them rather than running, all of the routes starting the same way with the runners traipsing off back out the way we drove in.

As the start approached I wandered over to the mark and hovered around with everyone else who gathered in fits and starts. With about 5 minutes to go one of the marshals came over to give us a briefing using the smallest loud-hailer in the world that was completely ineffective even from only about 10 people back!.. The briefing consisted of a very cosy 'as you all know' etc. implying that they expected everyone to have run the race before, and advised those who hadn't to follow someone who knew the way, then he dropped the bomb-shell that the last 10k of the route from the final check-point was all-new so even those who have been along before would not be able to just follow or go on auto-pilot. This was to selective groans from those assembled.

The briefing, with loud-hailer man on the right.

And we were off… Off in to the delights of Stevenage, one of the many faceless satellite London overspill new-towns built around London to cope with the slum clearances after the Second World War when the Luftwaffe destroyed swathes of the residential parts of the east-end of London. I can't really say a great deal seeing as I live just outside one of the other ones in the form of Basingstoke. The housing is interchangeable between all of them, with the town planning being very similar: lots of underpasses and roundabouts.

Out the gate like veritable greyhounds after the hare.

As we headed out of the school the first off-road venture was across the Fairlands Valley Park, the home of the 'Spartans' club that organises the event, and past the large boating lake with its sail boats which is a terrific thing to have in the centre of a town. Soon we were jogging down past the home of Stevenage Borough FC - a club with which my team Farnborough FC has a chequered history through its former owner/ manager and now Stevenage manager: Graham 'Judas' Westley. If anyone wants to know exactly what happened, then message me and I'll fill-you in with my version of what happened from a fan's stand-point but needless to say it involves £500k of missing cash, the first team squad disappearing all a week after having lost 7-1 to Arsenal in the FA Cup!

The less said about this lot the better!

Past the footy ground and through some more rabbit-warren housing estates and after 3 miles we were out of the town and in to the countryside, crossing farmers fields full of this year's late blooming rape-seed that was pretty much at the end of flowering and in to its seeding stage.

Traversing a rapeseed field

The first of the wheat fields.

The route was pretty much a mix of footpaths across fields and country lanes from check-point to checkpoint. On the second leg I engaged in a conversation with a gent called Paul who was in the 100 marathon club, and running in his 196th overall. He was telling me about how his exploits have inspired his girlfriend to start running. So far she has gone distance wise from nothing to completing a marathon length, although she prefers to stick with the half distance and concentrate on improving her times as she feels most comfortable with this distance… Paul also pointed out to me one of the other runners in the field, who I had noticed at the South Downs due to being covered in tattoos, he was on his 912th marathon! Truly dedication on his behalf.

Another wheat field.

Now as we all traipsed through the fields and countryside, this is where it all got a bit ridiculous. Several times I jogged up on people studying their directions at forks in the path or at cross-roads wondering where the correct route was, with everyone who caught-up joining in the conflab until consensus was reached and a way chosen, or someone caught-up who had run it before and said 'this way' as they carried on past. One bunch of people I saw jogging along and joining a 'T' on the route from the right to left as I headed up from the bottom of it turned out had made a half mile detour due to dodgy directions before they realised their mistake - so a mile of distance, valuable minutes and energy was expended by them all.

Ohh, another wheat field.

Soon enough it was my turn to have my moment of map misfortune as myself, and 2 people that followed me missed a turn off of a path through some woods that cost us a mile to realise the error and tack-round to re-join the correct course which narked me somewhat. The whole experience of stopping to read the directions every couple of hundred yards at times in forest sections was a real irritant and a hindrance to making a good time in the race. To make things better at one point we were told to run along a road and go through a 'gap in the hedge', all well and good until you find the wrong gap, or just run on past because after years of growth the 'gap' was now too obscured… There were also erroneous directions as well. It seemed they had cut and pasted from the previous year but neglected to check for changes out on the route, so when a sign post indicating a right turn was mentioned, in reality it was not there!.. Now it doesn't take much to double check the route and in the process to tie a bit of tape to foliage where turns are, but something as basic as this seems to have escaped the organisers!

The instructions... P1

Pages 2&3

Page 4... All the worse for wear after running with it in my sweaty hand!

It was on the last leg in to the final checkpoint that in traversing a section of scrubland, I saw this empty snail shell on the ground. It was mahoosive for a British snail, a good 50% bigger than the normal ones you get in the garden, so I took a photo with the gel wrapper next to it to give a sense of scale.

The trail...

With the mahoosive snail!

After the last checkpoint there didn't seem to be too much point in busting to get back to the finish. I knew I was not going to post a decent time through losing the minutes to the mile detour and with the continual stopping to check directions. The sun was now out in full and at its fiery best in the mid 20's rather than the overcast skies we had had till now. To be honest, I was so disheartened with all that had gone before and combining this with the fact that I was running in walking shoes (which were not giving me any trouble at all for chaffing, so at least that was a positive), I had given-up on the race as a challenge for a good time by about mile 18.

A church we passed en-route

And its graveyard

With mature yew tree.

...And for variety, yet another wheat field!

This last section was the 'new' bit, so no-one had a Scooby-Doo about where they were supposed to be going other than from the crib sheets in our hands, so it was a bit of an exercise in the blind leading the blind with people trying to interpret the directions in the hope of making it back.

A rapeseed field, just for some variety!

Eventually I arrived on the outskirts of Stevenage and traipsing through the housing estates once more I was soon at the playing fields of the school where the post-race party was already in full swing. Grumpily I sat down, not bothering to indulge in anything from the runner's barbie. After munching on some jelly-babies I availed myself of the excellent facilities in having a shower - a rarity at these events, so at least I was fresh enough to meet-up for a pizza with my friend Claire, who lives in Stevenage, without smelling like a tramp!

The run may have been unenjoyable to say the least (although not uneventful!) and essentially a glorified club-run but at least I got a chance to meet and play with the infamous Oscar, Claire's dog-share cocker-poo, who is lovely :)

Oscar :)

I will certainly not be going back to repeat this race and I would warn anyone considering it about what they are letting themselves in for… It is a poorly laid-out club run, not a slick well-organised event like most marathons are, although the facilities were excellent.