Lincolnshire Spires & Steeples Challenge - 18th October 2009
After I ran London in April, my friend Tim and I were in the pub, discussing the fact that his next marathon would be his 10th. We came up with a plan to mark the occasion, which was to try and get 10 people together to run with him, and raise £10,000 for charitable causes. Tim and I have known each other from school, and he's kind of responsible for getting me running again when he persuaded me to do the Great North Run with him back in 2005. We also ran the Loch Ness marathon together in 2007.
This race was selected because it was equally accessible from London and Edinburgh, and fell on the right weekend to fit with my kids school holidays. No more to it than that really. When it came to it, we only managed to find 7 runners too. Which then dropped to 6 because of a fairly unpleasant foot injury for one of our crew. Anyway...
The race starts in Lincoln and follows an arts and heritage trail through various villages and past their medieval churches to finish in Sleaford, 26 miles away. It's open to runners and walkers, and there's a shorter 12-mile option too.
The chat in the Italian restaurant the night before the race was fairly inconclusive in terms of how we'd all do. Our experience varied widely - we had 2 first timers, 1 person who had done 1 marathon about 10 years back, and 3 of us who'd run a few marathons before (this was my 5th) but didn't fill we had trained to peak condition... Plus it was a 'multi-terrain' race, which was new to all of us for this distance. 4 of us had met up for an 18-mile training run in London several weeks back, and I'd been the only one who'd finished strongly. Two people only managed 17 miles. We all decided that our priority was to finish in good shape, enjoy it, and run within ourselves. (But I knew fine well that at least one person would be unable to do anything but go for broke.)
The race starts right in the centre of historic Lincoln, in the grounds of the castle, looking across to the cathedral. A fantastic setting on a bright, crisp morning like this. It was pretty chilly, but sunny. Everyone turned up, which was a good start. The first mile was all very steeply downhill, through the cobbled streets of Lincoln down the imaginatively titled 'Castle Hill' and 'Steep Hill'. None of us wanted to go off too quickly and it would have been difficult to charge off anyway as it was pretty treacherous in the narrow, lumpy medieval streets. First thing I learned was that my trainers were tied far too tightly. Once the initial rush was over I stopped to re-tie them rather than suffer any further. This was a very smart move - guess I'm learning now I've done a few marathons. The next part of the race took us along the river out of Lincoln, following a towpath. It didn't take me long to re-take the first of my friends, Jon. Jon had run his only previous marathon, 10 years before, in over 5 hours. He was aiming to do something similar this time around. I then caught up with all but one of the rest of our crew. As I'd expected, Steve had charged off aiming to match his previous sub-3.30 best, despite advancing years and a lack of training. But it was very early on and I wanted to stick to my plan of maintaining an even pace throughout. I was running at about 8.20 pace, hoping for about 3.45 finish.
The next mile or two was along minor roads, and we passed our first couple of churches. Then we left the road to run on paths across fields. Most of the race was off-road, on tracks, paths, trails and across fields. We had various kissing gates and stiles to negotiate, and quite a few of the fields had no marked path at all, we were just going cross-country straight across rugged arable fields and grassland. And on a day like this, beautiful autumn sunshine, it was fantastic. (For now.)
When we reached the 12-mile mark in Metheringham, my legs were feeling a bit tired for the first time. Not great when there's 14 miles still to go! This was the finish for quite a lot of people, and the mayor of Lincoln was out with various others to mark the spot. He even handed us a bottle of Lucozade, which was nice. There weren't many proper water stations along the way, so I was wearing my Camelbak. The race organisers had also left occasional bottles of water on obvious points along the way, on top of walls, bins and pavements. Energy drinks were few and far between - we were basically relying on random acts of kindness from stewards and spectators. Plus I was carrying jelly babies.
The next few miles continued in the same vein. More villages, more fields, a mixture of clearly-marked trails and paths and full-on cross-country over fields. At this point, I was lying third amongst our band of runners, and keeping fairly steady pace. I'd run most of the race with my friend Tim. But at about 16 miles, one of our first-timers - and the only lady in our group - went flying past running very strong and clearly in better shape. I certainly had no inclination to try and match her. But I was feeling pretty reasonable at this point. I was getting more tired, and appreciating each uneven field less and less. And each stile was becoming more and more difficult too. When you start subconsciously calculating the ratio between the height of the step and the height of the fence you've to lift your leg over, you know you're in trouble. There was one stile at about mile 20 with a particularly unnecessary ratio - a very low step and a high fence and my hamstring cramped right up as I lifted my leg over it. But strangely, after I'd shaken this off and had a swig or two of my colleague's lucozade, I felt stronger again.
One of the things that gave me a lift was catching sight of our team's previous front-runner, Steve, who'd gone charging off at the start. We slowly hauled him in, and shortly after that, at mile 21, came a highlight of the course - crossing a field full of free-range hens. Flapping around us in all directions, it certainly took your mind off anything else. Closing the gate behind us on leaving the field, it was about 300 metres before we came across one lone hen that must have escaped when an earlier runner had made his way out. I'm guessing it was a good day for whatever fox family lives nearby.
At around this point, I pulled away from both Tim and Steve who were beginning to struggle while I still felt comparatively OK. As always, the last few miles seemed to last as long as the first 20 did. And the going was particularly tough too, running several miles along uneven ridges at the edge of fields along the river. My pace faded a bit, but for the first time ever in a marathon I didn't stop to walk at any point. At about 25 miles, we re-joined a tarmac towpath along the river, and knew we were on our final stretch. It felt very good to be back on even tarmac, and it didn't seem too long at all before I heard some clapping ahead and saw a few people lined up across a bridge. I ran up and over the bridge and it turned I was at the finish 100 yards later. There were only about a dozen people and a few other runners there to greet us, so a big difference from my last marathon at London!
I finished in 3.50. Jenny had come in at 3.37 well ahead of the rest of us, and second lady in the event in her first ever marathon. Tim and Steve came in together at 3.53, and then the best moment of the day saw Jon - our expected 5-hour man - come in at 3.57, an hour and a half quicker than his only previous marathon when he was 10 years younger! Our final team member came in at about 4.15. So, a great result all round.
Plus, between us we've raised nearly £3000 for Great Ormond Street Hospital, over £2000 for Kids Play and about £2000 for a school in Gambia that Jenny will be visiting next year.
Don't ever believe anyone who says that Lincolnshire is all flat though, there were a fair few hills. And anyone who says multi-terrain races are much easier on your legs isn't to be believed either, it was pretty knackering. Plus there were a few points where we nearly went the wrong way. But we didn't, and so I'd recommend this to anyone who finds themselves down this way and fancies trying something a bit different.
Inevitably, talk after the race was beginning to turn to what we should all aim to do next year, so me and the family made a run for it and drove off for our week's holiday in North Wales.
(As a postscript, when leaving North Wales yesterday we were driving along the route of the Snowdonia marathon which was taking place that day. Weather conditions were horrific - driving, horizontal rain. Very glad we didn't choose it for our challenge and I really feel for anyone who was doing it. Looks like a tough enough race anyway, even in helpful weather)Report Sandy MacDonald
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