Rowbotham’s Round Rotherham 13/12/08
This was something else. The weather was inclement – literally, as in merciless. It rained all day, it was cold, and the wind blew all morning. But what I remember most is mud. Mud – not particularly glorious mud, but certainly more than enough to cool down the blood – and anything else. It sucked at your shoes. It covered your kit. And everything got slowly heavier. The long and many stretches of ankle deep freezing water at least washed some of the mud off – as well as washing a fair amount inside your shoes…
Graham’s reports on previous editions don’t talk much about the race itself. I now know this is because it is just too long to give any meaningful picture in a report. Imagine a 50 mile cross country with lots of stiles and paths across the middle of ploughed fields – fields soaked by heavy rain and through which you are following 200 pairs of feet. The race starts and finishes in the dark (if you run at my speed). There are constant twists, turns and junctions – most of which are unmarked. After the first leg, for which you can follow the line of runners ahead, you have to run with eyes glued to the map. The course splits into eight stages, at the end of which there is always food and drink, and usually a village hall to hide in. Along with the ploughed fields, there are canals, rivers and lakes to run alongside, three motorways and two railways to cross, farms to run through, and lots of pubs to run past. Some of you would have heard me wondering about how this race could possibly take folk as long as it did, and how could folk think it more difficult than the Devil of the Highlands, which has three mountains to go over. Now I know – this is not an easy option for those thinking about a first ultra.
I felt I was in trouble as I approached the end of the first 10 mile stage. Although I was deliberately running easily, and running comfortably in the pack, this took me over 90 minutes, but was hard going. I’d lined up a support crew of five – but many thanks to Rosemary who was the only one who actually turned up. She reported me as grumpy at the first checkpoint. Grumpy because I was slow – but also cold. I was running with a long sleeved top, my porty vest and a waterproof, but was still shivering from the rain and wind. I added gloves – then a second pair at a later stop, and then another jacket – and that was just about OK whilst I was running. But I’ve never worn so much whilst running. I’ve also never eaten so much. Half a Morrison’s fruitcake, an entire pack of M&S Jaffa cakes, assorted flapjacks, chocolate rice-crispy cakes, Club biscuits, two flasks of sweet tea – and of course bars of tablet. Much of which I wouldn’t have imagined you could eat whilst running, but you obviously can. My Garmin claimed I burnt over 7000 calories during the day.
During the second stage, I was happily following a long line of runners down a road, enjoying the odd moment of being on tarmac, when a call from behind me flagged we’d all missed a turn. I didn’t see most of those then in front of me again. I ran the rest of that stage with a local, but with map in hand – for which I owe thanks to Peter B, who had laminated one for me and Graham. This saved my race – and several others. In the constant rain, paper maps didn’t survive: the OS Map in my backpack disintegrated without me ever getting it out – and a number of folk tried to run without a map at all. I came across several groups waiting dazed at path junctions for someone to come along who might know the way. Not that I managed to stay on track – I ran somewhere between 53 and 55 miles in all, taking several detours and having to backtrack. The most annoying was very near the finish, when I was trying to catch up a couple of runners who looked like they knew where they were going. I added at least half a mile following them before I let them disappear into the distance and turned round to try and find where we’d gone wrong (but I did beat them to the finish!).
During stages 3 and 4 I started getting cramp crossing stiles, and felt the odds of finishing were slim. I’d also taken something like 4 hrs 20 to get to the marathon point – a personal worst – and was expecting to get much slower. But lots of salt – which goes surprisingly well with jaffa cakes – kept the cramp at bay, and I always felt I could do one more stage. By now, when you came across other runners, you’d be with them for ten minutes or so, and most were chatty. Almost all said they’d thought about retiring at half way, that they wanted to get as far as possible before dark, that they didn’t want to have to come back and do the first half again next year….
I couldn’t have told you where I was in the field at this point, or even where I was in relation to the finish. During stage six I was overtaken by four ladies – evidence to support the idea that women get better than men if races are long enough. But one of these four got even more lost than me before the finish, as only three finished before me. Stage 7 was a race against the gathering dark – I’d stupidly decided to leave putting on the headtorch to the end of the stage. A very lonely journey through dark fields across the top of a range of little hills made me feel like I was well and truly lost. But there was little alternative to keeping going. Down into the valley for the final stage and it was definitely dark. My breathe hung in vapour clouds lit up by the head torch. And then finally the end came in sight.
I finished in 10 hours 11 minutes, for 46th place out of 172 finishers. So starting at 7 am, I finished at ten past five. 74 starters didn’t make it to the finish. The last two who did came in at 11 pm. I’d lost all track of time long before the end. I probably also spent around an hour at the various checkpoints – at least 20 minutes at the midway one, where I changed my socks and queued for the loo. It only felt like five minutes at most – but that mile took me over half an hour according to the Garmin, which doesn’t lie. The Garmin kept going all day – but at some point I must have stopped it, since it recorded me running 47.5 miles in 9hrs 15 mins. I know roughly when this was – because for a long time I was telling myself I wanted to last for longer than 7 hrs 30 (that being the longest I’d ever run). Could I really have been looking at my watch for fifty minutes before I realised it was stuck at 6 hrs 45 mins because it wasn’t on?
Graham was an hour ahead in 29th – and was feeling chipper enough to press on with his stupid plan to drive straight down to Stanstead. His coach needs to give him a good session on how to prevent chafing! I hadn’t seen him all day – but there he was, naked in the changing room, inviting all to comment on his war wounds as if it had just been a normal jog round the park. Character forming, I think he said, possibly more than once. He also mentioned plans to come up with a special club run for the end of January involving drinking beer – so keep an eye on the website for that.
A final comment is thanks to the organisers. Organisation was excellent. The checkpoints all had sufficient marshals and goodies to mean you could run this race unsupported if you had to. And a free three course meal at the end was very welcome – though didn’t stop me having another one an hour later. If you want a challenge, the Round Rotherham is a good place to look.
Report Richard Dennis
Photos culled from website (with results) taken in 2006 on a much brighter sunnier drier day and yet still not particularly inspiring/attractive.Graham's Report...
Character Building Trip to Rotherham
Aye, this is one of the great races. To be honest I think it is the best race I have ever taken part in. There are great Scottish Hill Races, the 7 Hills I love but Rotherham on the second Saturday in December every year is what life is about. It is the rawness of the event from a runners point of view but the great warmth of the marshals, back up staff and my fellow runners that beats any other event. Every year I hunt in a pack to find the finish. This year it was a London, Birmingham, Edinburgh alliance made up on the run. I ran with the female winner Alayne Malkin basically the whole way and from halfway a chap called Olly from London. Olly was the map reader, Alayne the pace setter and my job was the memory man for the route without looking at the map and also the odd verbal shout. Going into Hooton Roberts I announced it was “time for the boozer” Olly immediately said the phrase back to me in a Scottish Accent. The banter keeps you going and Olly did thank me at the end for my verbal contributions. My singing is rank but I was giving it a bit of Kool and the Gang “Lets go Dancing” for the last 500 meters.
Richard did really well to keep going and to finish. A very brave man on a day for the ducks. A lot of hardened runners had to submit to the conditions. It rained all day. I had my waterproof trousers on and my groin was chaffed to red raw. It looked like I needed a visit to the VD clinic. Aye, running can cause a bit of discomfort. The day was rounded off with driving down to London with heavy snow falling.
If you want a report on the route best to go to my first report in 2005. I still had people coming up to me about that report. Rotherham Harriers have a link and that is the one that Peter did some great work on Andrew Jeske. I found out after the event that Peter had made me a lovely laminated map. Thanks for that and Richard was a bit late at the start and we missed each other in the dark. Hope you enjoy your Christmas Presentation Night, I am presently in France eating lots of seafood and drinking. Aye, they have Boozers here.
Next run is Boxing Day 0900hrs from the bottom car park at Hillend. Bonne Annee, Joyeux Noel Ya Bass.
Report Graham Henry.
These photos from official photographers Armada Photography who had the unenviable task of standing in the wet trying not to get their equipment wet. Graham says the stone in the photo might be a gravestone - possibly to industry in the north of England. Unfortunately no shots of RD on the photography website but if you want to see another 81 photos of rain, mud and drenched runners click here.
Why do I think GH might be the only Porty there next year?
