I seem to be falling into a bit of a pattern.
I enter quite a few events, with the hope that it will motivate me to start training again and get fit. I fail to do that, cancel the entries, but somehow there's been a race every year that I still end up going along to, totally underprepared, very overweight, and unfit.
This is where I found myself a couple of weeks ago. At a start line, about to take on 29 trail miles up and over and round about the very beautiful, but very hilly, Chiltern Hills for day 1 of XNRG's Druid's Challenge, with pretty much zero preparation.
Despite having cancelled the entry, I received a race number through my letter box, a year to the day since my last marathon. I was so excited to see a race number that I decided to take it as a sign that I shouldn't have cancelled, even if it had been sent it error.
So, with two weeks to go, having confirmed that walkers were welcome, I reinstated my entry. I convinced myself that I would surely be able to hike for 29 miles, on the back of my occasional 3 or 4 mile jogs around the local woods, and decided to give myself a nice day off work and a night away from home.
Over the years, I've done five events with XNRG, the first one back in 2012 at The Toad which was also my first multi day event - 90 miles along the Thames over three days in very flooded conditions. I absolutely loved it, and every race I've done with them has been special, so I knew what to expect, and that I would be well looked after, without any pressure on my finish time. No cut-offs!
With life inordinately busy and stressful these days, my two weeks for preparation disappeared in a blur with barely any mileage, and all of that sudden it was the morning of the race, and I was up early for the 2.5 hour drive to get the start line!
I wont lie...once I arrived, I did start feeling a little nervous, and a bit of a fraud as I listened to the people talking about how their training had been going, or how much they'd been running. We were bused from the registration centre up to the start and had to take a brief walk from the road up the slippery chalk hill to the Ivenhoe Beacon where we'd be setting off from. The reality of the hilliness of the route started to dawn on me, as did a fear that I may well have been a little over-confident.
I went into the the Druid's Challenge knowing I would have to walk because I'm absolutely not fit enough to run, and with an expectation that I should be able to finish in under 10 hours - a walking pace of 20 min/miles and some time stood still at the three checkpoints. I grew up around the Chilterns, and have done a few races around them before, so I knew there would be some steep climbs, technical bits and tricky descents, so my pace would inevitably be slow.
Typically though, as soon as the race started, I got over enthusiastic, found myself dragged along, trying to keep up with other people and did a bit of running. Far too fast for me! I was dressed in layers (to keep me warm as a slower paces walker) so got hot and had to strip off before a mile had gone past and to try and get my breath back!
I was a bit more sensible after that...and it was WONDERFUL to be out on a trail at an event. I didn't care that I was practically at the back, or that I was going so slowly. I jogged occasionally, I walked a lot and I loved it. I couldn't believe it had been so long since I had given myself the opportunity to enjoy something that brings me so much happiness.
The route along the ancient Ridgeway National Trail was absolutely stunning. It was a bit foggy and grey for much of the morning, and some of the views from the tops of the hills were missing, but the path often passed through incredible woodland and it was the best time of year for it - the autumnal leaves were an incredible mix of vibrant colours, and the rolling hills just made my heart sing. I kept stopping to take photos which probably didn't help my progress.
I also used poles.
My husband bought me poles for Christmas 2015, as I was planning on some really challenging events in 2016 and knew my training would include lots of hills. However, I fell pregnant, pulled out of those races and hadn't picked up the poles at all. They've just been sat in the umbrella stand mocking me all these years! Despite the internal shame at using poles (Mark Cockbain has definitely got into my head - IYKYK) they were a brilliant help and I quickly adapted to carrying them.
The last miles from the checkpoint to the finish were in all in darkness as I'd expected they would be. I haven't done anything at night for ages but it went well with mostly only the hooting of the owls for company. My fastest mile was in fact the last one, when I did actually do some "proper" running. It was on a road without a pavement and I felt a bit vulnerable all in black with only a headtorch so just wanted to get that bit done as quickly as possible.
Anyway, it was a really fabulous day out, across the most beautiful route, and it made me smile. I met lovely people who were all fitter and faster than me, but they didn't judge me in any way for being quite obviously underprepared. The XNRG staff and the CP teams were all exceptional and I couldn't have asked for better support.
I finished in 8hrs 38 minutes for a distance of 29.48 miles by my Garmin with 2,575ft of elevation change, and I wasn't last. Over the moon!
I'm now itching to sign up for another one, but just need to make sure I actually start doing so training so I can run it instead of hiking, and maybe even do the whole weekend rather going home after the first day! The other challenge with not being fit enough for a race is that recovery is MUCH slower. The day afterwards, I had my twin daughters' 8th birthday party at a trampolining centre with 11 other children - I was a lot stiffer than expected and in quite a lot of pain. But definitely all worth it!
