The Thunder Run, was one of the major runs on my calendar this
year; my first Marathon at London, my marathon PB at Edinburgh and finally I
was getting to run the Thunder Run, my running year is nearly complete.
I joined the Trentham Thunder Run Team last year when I went
along to see them running it in 2011, the atmosphere was brilliant coined a festival
for runners, with 24 hour food and showers what more could one want.
The team and running order was sorted Team Captain Ken had
sorted everything out from registering us at the event, calculated everyone’s
predicted times and looked after the priceless Trentham tent.
The weather gods were looking down on us and Friday was glorious
sunny with a slight breeze; I had begged a lift with Dan Jordan and Jill to
reduce the burden of cars on the campsite.
We made it their easily although we did take a lovely detour through
Burton upon Trent, we found the Trentham encampment easily and Pickles
suggested where we could put our tents, in the nicest possible way.
Before you knew it the camp had taken shape
and it was a sight to behold, we were literally on the course, the runners had
to pass our bases so it was ideal for keeping an eye on what was going on.
The sun was still shining so I thought it was an ideal time
to have a nice cold Dark Fruits Strongbow cider…….ohh it was lovely and very
short lived, it was decided that it would be a good idea to take recky of the
course and see what the next day had in for us.
The guys agreed to take it slow and the emphasis was on steady and easy,
which in fairness it was, plenty of stopping to take photos and looking out for
the really bad bits and for how after 5k it was all downhill…..yeah right.
Heading back in to camp I was looking forward to finishing
to cold (now slightly warm) can of cider and a few more for good measure. Looking at the running order I was not due to
run until 5:30 in the afternoon, which was great news and something I held dear
as I opened my next few cans……
The morning arrived and the muted tones of early morning
camp life could be heard; Lee, Scott and Matt were all heading off to the
Merebrook; Sarah and Emily with their little ones were awake and moving around
and before long everyone was up and getting more excited as the minutes ticked
by. Debbie arrived at the camp and the team was complete, happy days.
The race starts at 12:00 noon on the Saturday and Dave was up
first, we all wished him well and he was off like shot, I took this opportunity
to have a look around the expo and made some essential running purchases before
heading back to the camp. Back at the camp we settled down to watch the runners
pass and send out cheers and shouts of encouragement. It seemed like no time
and the 1st runners were coming passed and when we saw Dave coming
striding past looking great! (well a little sweaty and hot, but great all the
same).
There was a steady stream of activity at the camp people
coming and going, preparing to go out on their runs, getting back and cooling
off, refuelling and getting ready for their next loop.
Before I knew it was my
turn, the weather was good warm, dry and a slight breeze my idea running
conditions. Ken and I headed down to the start, made it in to the runners
enclosure and waited for Paul Clinton to pass over the baton to me, then I saw
him, which a mixture of anticipation and excitement I snapped the baton around
my wrist and headed off. I was now glad
that I had at least seen the course so I knew what was coming and what to look
out for. The trees and woods where the
nicest bits of my first lap as they gave you a chance to cool down ad seeing
Ken at the 5k mark was brilliant he held out a cup a cold water which I drank a
little but dumped the rest on my head.
Made it up the conti climb and then it was all downhill from here, well
ish. Running passed the Trentham camp
gave me a real boost and helped me reach for the finish to pass the baton over
to Lee Jones and see him flying off. Please
my 1st lap out of the way and 2 minutes faster than predicted.
Unfortunately from here my times took a nose dive, I can’t
take all the blame I would have to say that mother nature had something to do
with it, as around 8:3pm we had an awesome thunder and lightning show (it ain’t called
the thunder run for nothing), however as the show started to finish the rain
started and not one to be upstaged it threw it down in biblical portions for
the next 4-5 hours.
My run was scheduled for 10:45pm (ish) and it was still
lashing down, I was very apprehensive, after seeing Andy Vickerman come in
covered in head to toe in mud and saying he had fallen twice and broken his
head torch! I took over from Paul again and I gingerly headed out on the
course, with Paul’s warning ringing in my head “it is bloody mental out there
take care”. The course was indeed more
playful than it had been before, fortunately my trail shoes were helping me stay
on course and mainly upright. Again running past the camp gave me a great boost
and the end was in sight, I enjoyed the run however my time did take a beating officially
1:09….I was down by at least 10 minutes, but on the positive side I was still
in one piece and able to run my last lap at 5am in the morning.
I showered, had something warm to eat and headed back into
my tent to get some sleep before I was due to head out again.
Before I knew it
Andy V walked past the tent and gave me a knock to make sure I was ready to
run, it was 4am, I had gone to sleep in my kit, so they only thing I really needed
to do was calm my hair down, wash my face and brush my teeth I was ready to go
again. The great news was that it had
stopped raining and the drawn was breaking, I would be running in the light and
hopefully less muddy than the night before.
5:00am saw me at the runner enclosure for the last time, feeling
remarkably refreshed despite only having
3 hours sleep, seeing Paul come running in the finish/start now felt very familiar
and he wish me well on my last run.
The only thought that was going through my head during this
run was Walter would love this, there was mud, nettles, hills and giant puddles
to navigate your way through. Again it seem to be all over in a blur and I was
running passed the Trentham camp there were a few more people up than when I
left. The only problem was that Lee was
still there, I think I must had taken him by surprise the look of shock on his
face made me giggle, I was powering up the hill for the last time and heading
down to the finish, lee was in the enclosure and ready to tear it up for his
last lap. Again my time had taken a beating
due to the sticky mud making it much harder to get any type of traction, so my
last la was 1:05(ish).
The rest of the morning was a flash of people coming and
going; Dave, Scot, Debs, Jon and Andy were all going on their 4th
lap and there was a small piece of me that was glad that I wasn’t going to have
to go around again. The camp slowly start to get packed away and then it was
time for us all to head off to the finish so we could run in to the finish as a
team with Andy.
We managed to run 26 laps between us and came 11 out of 253
mixed teams, same as last year, there was talk that perhaps we could have made
it to 10th but the night rain and times had really taken the wind
out of our sails.
However there is always next year……….
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| Green Army |
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