Belper Rugby Rover.

While I sat eating my porridge on Sunday morning, after a restless night, I contemplated packing away a soggy tent in the rain and then going for 30k run in it. I had a few doubts at the wisdom of attempting this race.

By the time the washing-up was done, the sun was out and prospects were looking brighter. Being optimistic that it’d last, I slapped on a load of SPF30 and made my way to the pre-race briefing. I have to say this was one of the clearest that I’d attended. Firstly, I could hear it and secondly, we were shown an example of all the different arrows and tape to look out for, advised not to touch the electric fence (MRT on standby) and told not to frighten any livestock (as if).

Here’s the route profile.

A nice easy route to follow with lots of varied terrain, not too boggy despite the overnight rain and the views made up for the tarmac bits. Good clearance was given to anything remotely electrified and the only livestock we came across was a large herd of mostly placid cows and an irate woman farmer yelling at us to stop running, as it was frightening the cows. I think her yelling and flapping her arms about and the farmhand on the quad-bike were doing a better job of this than us!

I was a little worried that having reached the half-way point at a shade shy of 2hrs that I’d make it to the finish in under 4hrs. The last bit of ouchie tarmac ensured I managed to complete the course in just under 11min/mile pace. How much under will be verified when I get a sight of the results.

TF