Saturday, October 11, 2008
The Waltham Winder
First, I must apologise for the lack of photos- my camera did it's usual trick and decided not to tell me the batteries were flat until I tried to take a photo...
Luckily I slept right through until 5am after a really early night last night, and when I woke, my headache had gone! The Winder is a local event and doesn't take much time to get to, so I had a leisurely sachet of porridge in bed. As before, there were three routes; 26 miles, 16 miles and 10 miles, with staggered start times for each. We were given a brief route overview, and, as before, the routes were marked with either red (26 miles), blue (16 miles) or green (10 miles) arrows, and where routes converged, the markers were black arrows with corresponding coloured dots underneath.
I met Sue, who was walking with two chaps, and went outside for the 8:15am start (the runners went at 8:00am but I don't really class myself as a runner, so joined the walkers). There was a larger field this year, but the event seems to have had more publicity. We had had a 'briefing' and had been advised that the route had changed, as last year's wasn't very popular, so they had gone back to the old one. Originally all routes finished along the same route, but then they discovered that the 26 mile route was only actually 24 miles- so added a bit on the end! I had decided on my larger ruck sack- weighing around 4 kg.
There was a sign outside the village hall requesting us to start as quietly as possible out of consideration for the locals, but this was slightly negated by the fact that they started each route at 15 minute intervals by a large blast from an air horn! We climbed out through the village, and up the Bescaby Road- I was chatting to Sue and her companions at this point. We turned off the road by a disused race track, before picking up a dirt track. I decided to start a little jog here and left the others behind. Pretty soon, the 16 mile runners started to stream past, and I followed them and the track round to the right. I had gone a few hundres yards when I met a demoralising sight- loads of runners coming back towards me, as instead of turning right we should have gone straight on!!
I retraced my steps, and followed the muddy track and field to the first checkpoint at Croxton Kerrial, jogging and managing to overtake some walkers. As before, we were given red elastic bands to hand in at each proper checkpoint. Sue was already there- they had managed to avoid going too badly wrong! I had a lovely homemade flapjack and stashed a mars bar for later- honestly, each check point had boxes of full size mars bars- not your usual little fun size ones!!
The 16 mile route turned off in the village, and the next stretch I had done a fortnight earlier as it was part of the Ponton Plod. It was a lovely day, we were really jammy again with the weather. I followed Sue and the others through woods, and along tracks, and overtook them in a field when I started to jog again (they are faster walkers than me!)
I passed through Harston and followed the road up to the cycle path we used on the Plod, and was quite surprised to find a refreshment stop just before it. I was even more surprised to be told that I was the first 26 mile walker through- that has never before happened to me! In fact, they assumed I was a runner at first and told me I'd catch up with them soon!
The cycle track was easy going, so I kept to a jog, even managing to send a couple of texts whilst on the move! When I got to the end of the track, I turned right as signed and saw one of the organisers walking towards me carrying signs; he said that some had been removed and the one I'd just seen had been turned round to point the wrong way- luckily one of the runners had righted it or I would probably still be running round Leicestershire now!
The next stretch was a lengthy one following the canal, with another refreshment stop and more home made cakes. I stashed another Mars Bar (this is fast becoming a ritual!) and set off at a slow jog. Rory Colman, who has completed the MdS loads of times, was organising a run along the length of the canal today, I wondered if I might see them but think we were too far along. I had a few sticky moments when I wondered if I should have turned off, but finally left the canal and headed up a road towards Belvoir Castle. This was uphill, and my legs were feeling tired, so I tried to power walk with varying degrees of success. It was quite hot, I could actually feel the sun beating down on me. I stopped for more cake eating and mars bar stashing at another refreshment stop, and they expressed amazement as I was still the first walker through. I felt a bit guilty as I had actually ran a lot of it- I felt like I was cheating somehow!
There followed some fairly unpleasant road walking on a busy road- uphill to Belvoir Castle, past it and down towards Belvoir Woods. The track through the woods was muddy in parts, but I still jogged when I could. I reached another checkpoint, gave up a band and took a packet of mini cheddars as I figured I needed some salt! Two ladies with dogs followed me in- they were the last 16 mile walkers and had got lost.
I walked, slipped and jogged through the woods for a lo-o-ong time, before finally emerging into daylight on a metalled track, and following it to fields to Eaton. I turned down a track, and saw a chap taking down a sign, which he put in his Land Rover! When I ran up and queried what he was doing, he said he had had orders to remove all the signs- I said, rather increduously, 'But the 26 mile walkers haven't come through yet!' 'Oh', he said, 'Are there still people behind you?' Well, yes, only all of the 26 mile walkers and the two 16 mile walkers... he promised to put it back up and I carried on, safe in the knowledge that I had quite possibly saved the entire field of 26 mile walkers... I was still jogging on the flat and walking up hill, and then started overtaking 16 mile walkers (which was another novelty for me!)
There was a really tempting array of cakes (and mars bars) at the checkpoint at Eaton; I was introduced as the 'first 26 mile walker', but as I left, Sue and her companions came in- I hadn't realised they were so close, Sue said that the blokes were really fast walkers and were 'killing' her! She is certainly very fit... I have to admit, my competitiveness kicked in a little here, and I was determined to maintain my status of 'first 26 mile walker!!' I ran uphill through Eaton, passed more 16 mile walkers, and further up the road was directed into a field, by a guy in a yellow jacket. I set off in full shambling jog across the fields, overtaking 16 mile walkers, until I came to a sign with a black arrow and a blue and green dot. No red dot. Bugger. I pushed on to the next sign- again, blue and green dots only.
I started to panic a little and wondered whether I should go back to the chap in the yellow jacket. But when I got my brief instructions out, the little map showed all the routes going together to the next mini checkpoint, which we hadn't yet reached. The description appeared to back this up, so I pressed on, finally emerging onto a road and seeing a sign with all three dots on- sheer relief!! I past through the last refreshment stop, grabbing drinks, cake and obligatory mars bar, and got to Goadby Marwood (how do these villages get their names!?!) where the red route took it's detour along the road to Wycomb.
It was feeling like a bit of a slog at this point, and my legs were feeling really tired. I caught up with a 26 mile runner, and we ran together for a few minutes before he told me to go ahead- he had done quite a few challenging events close together and said they had taken their toll. He had panicked like I had about the lack of red dots on the signs after Eaton, and had retraced his steps to ask the bloke in the yellow jacket, so had lost a bit of time. After I left him, I followed the red arrows (not the little planes!) to the village of Chadwell, and picked up a footpath through fields (all uphill naturally and with cows in- luckily disinterested!) back to Waltham-on-the-Wolds.
I jogged through the village and, for the first and probably last time ever, had the distinction of being the first walker home! My time was 6 hours and 15 minutes, which I am well happy with. I also managed to obtain a total of 8 mars bars, some of which will come in handy for next weekend (if they last that long...)
Had a very welcome slice of apple pie and custard, and waited for Sue. They finished in about 6 hours 45 minutes, which was pretty good going- they also turned back to query the route after Eaton, and ended up jogging to claw back some time.
A chap approached me and said his wife is thinking of doing the MdS, so we chatted about it and I told him to tell her about the MdS Forum. It was really nice, as everybody wished me good luck for the MdS when I left!
My legs are aching a bit but not too bad- I called in at Tesco on the way back, and was able to walk normally (whilst trying to avoid standing to close to people as I didn't smell very sociable...) I haven't had any suspect pains at all, just muscular aches, which is good...
... lie in tomorrow and no gym- but I will probably dream of following red arrows!!
Luckily I slept right through until 5am after a really early night last night, and when I woke, my headache had gone! The Winder is a local event and doesn't take much time to get to, so I had a leisurely sachet of porridge in bed. As before, there were three routes; 26 miles, 16 miles and 10 miles, with staggered start times for each. We were given a brief route overview, and, as before, the routes were marked with either red (26 miles), blue (16 miles) or green (10 miles) arrows, and where routes converged, the markers were black arrows with corresponding coloured dots underneath.
I met Sue, who was walking with two chaps, and went outside for the 8:15am start (the runners went at 8:00am but I don't really class myself as a runner, so joined the walkers). There was a larger field this year, but the event seems to have had more publicity. We had had a 'briefing' and had been advised that the route had changed, as last year's wasn't very popular, so they had gone back to the old one. Originally all routes finished along the same route, but then they discovered that the 26 mile route was only actually 24 miles- so added a bit on the end! I had decided on my larger ruck sack- weighing around 4 kg.
There was a sign outside the village hall requesting us to start as quietly as possible out of consideration for the locals, but this was slightly negated by the fact that they started each route at 15 minute intervals by a large blast from an air horn! We climbed out through the village, and up the Bescaby Road- I was chatting to Sue and her companions at this point. We turned off the road by a disused race track, before picking up a dirt track. I decided to start a little jog here and left the others behind. Pretty soon, the 16 mile runners started to stream past, and I followed them and the track round to the right. I had gone a few hundres yards when I met a demoralising sight- loads of runners coming back towards me, as instead of turning right we should have gone straight on!!
I retraced my steps, and followed the muddy track and field to the first checkpoint at Croxton Kerrial, jogging and managing to overtake some walkers. As before, we were given red elastic bands to hand in at each proper checkpoint. Sue was already there- they had managed to avoid going too badly wrong! I had a lovely homemade flapjack and stashed a mars bar for later- honestly, each check point had boxes of full size mars bars- not your usual little fun size ones!!
The 16 mile route turned off in the village, and the next stretch I had done a fortnight earlier as it was part of the Ponton Plod. It was a lovely day, we were really jammy again with the weather. I followed Sue and the others through woods, and along tracks, and overtook them in a field when I started to jog again (they are faster walkers than me!)
I passed through Harston and followed the road up to the cycle path we used on the Plod, and was quite surprised to find a refreshment stop just before it. I was even more surprised to be told that I was the first 26 mile walker through- that has never before happened to me! In fact, they assumed I was a runner at first and told me I'd catch up with them soon!
The cycle track was easy going, so I kept to a jog, even managing to send a couple of texts whilst on the move! When I got to the end of the track, I turned right as signed and saw one of the organisers walking towards me carrying signs; he said that some had been removed and the one I'd just seen had been turned round to point the wrong way- luckily one of the runners had righted it or I would probably still be running round Leicestershire now!
The next stretch was a lengthy one following the canal, with another refreshment stop and more home made cakes. I stashed another Mars Bar (this is fast becoming a ritual!) and set off at a slow jog. Rory Colman, who has completed the MdS loads of times, was organising a run along the length of the canal today, I wondered if I might see them but think we were too far along. I had a few sticky moments when I wondered if I should have turned off, but finally left the canal and headed up a road towards Belvoir Castle. This was uphill, and my legs were feeling tired, so I tried to power walk with varying degrees of success. It was quite hot, I could actually feel the sun beating down on me. I stopped for more cake eating and mars bar stashing at another refreshment stop, and they expressed amazement as I was still the first walker through. I felt a bit guilty as I had actually ran a lot of it- I felt like I was cheating somehow!
There followed some fairly unpleasant road walking on a busy road- uphill to Belvoir Castle, past it and down towards Belvoir Woods. The track through the woods was muddy in parts, but I still jogged when I could. I reached another checkpoint, gave up a band and took a packet of mini cheddars as I figured I needed some salt! Two ladies with dogs followed me in- they were the last 16 mile walkers and had got lost.
I walked, slipped and jogged through the woods for a lo-o-ong time, before finally emerging into daylight on a metalled track, and following it to fields to Eaton. I turned down a track, and saw a chap taking down a sign, which he put in his Land Rover! When I ran up and queried what he was doing, he said he had had orders to remove all the signs- I said, rather increduously, 'But the 26 mile walkers haven't come through yet!' 'Oh', he said, 'Are there still people behind you?' Well, yes, only all of the 26 mile walkers and the two 16 mile walkers... he promised to put it back up and I carried on, safe in the knowledge that I had quite possibly saved the entire field of 26 mile walkers... I was still jogging on the flat and walking up hill, and then started overtaking 16 mile walkers (which was another novelty for me!)
There was a really tempting array of cakes (and mars bars) at the checkpoint at Eaton; I was introduced as the 'first 26 mile walker', but as I left, Sue and her companions came in- I hadn't realised they were so close, Sue said that the blokes were really fast walkers and were 'killing' her! She is certainly very fit... I have to admit, my competitiveness kicked in a little here, and I was determined to maintain my status of 'first 26 mile walker!!' I ran uphill through Eaton, passed more 16 mile walkers, and further up the road was directed into a field, by a guy in a yellow jacket. I set off in full shambling jog across the fields, overtaking 16 mile walkers, until I came to a sign with a black arrow and a blue and green dot. No red dot. Bugger. I pushed on to the next sign- again, blue and green dots only.
I started to panic a little and wondered whether I should go back to the chap in the yellow jacket. But when I got my brief instructions out, the little map showed all the routes going together to the next mini checkpoint, which we hadn't yet reached. The description appeared to back this up, so I pressed on, finally emerging onto a road and seeing a sign with all three dots on- sheer relief!! I past through the last refreshment stop, grabbing drinks, cake and obligatory mars bar, and got to Goadby Marwood (how do these villages get their names!?!) where the red route took it's detour along the road to Wycomb.
It was feeling like a bit of a slog at this point, and my legs were feeling really tired. I caught up with a 26 mile runner, and we ran together for a few minutes before he told me to go ahead- he had done quite a few challenging events close together and said they had taken their toll. He had panicked like I had about the lack of red dots on the signs after Eaton, and had retraced his steps to ask the bloke in the yellow jacket, so had lost a bit of time. After I left him, I followed the red arrows (not the little planes!) to the village of Chadwell, and picked up a footpath through fields (all uphill naturally and with cows in- luckily disinterested!) back to Waltham-on-the-Wolds.
I jogged through the village and, for the first and probably last time ever, had the distinction of being the first walker home! My time was 6 hours and 15 minutes, which I am well happy with. I also managed to obtain a total of 8 mars bars, some of which will come in handy for next weekend (if they last that long...)
Had a very welcome slice of apple pie and custard, and waited for Sue. They finished in about 6 hours 45 minutes, which was pretty good going- they also turned back to query the route after Eaton, and ended up jogging to claw back some time.
A chap approached me and said his wife is thinking of doing the MdS, so we chatted about it and I told him to tell her about the MdS Forum. It was really nice, as everybody wished me good luck for the MdS when I left!
My legs are aching a bit but not too bad- I called in at Tesco on the way back, and was able to walk normally (whilst trying to avoid standing to close to people as I didn't smell very sociable...) I haven't had any suspect pains at all, just muscular aches, which is good...
... lie in tomorrow and no gym- but I will probably dream of following red arrows!!
Labels: Waltham Winder
