Merthyr Mawr Pudding 10k by Ivan
14-12-08
A gaggle of Harriers turned up at Candlestone car park on the edge of Merthyr Mawr ready to put their off road skills to the test. I don’t think Andy Creeber covered running up sand dunes in his summer school, he was obviously saving that little bit for himself and his assault on the club champs, unfortunately he sustained an injury and wasn’t able to run. So he let all of the harriers in attendance into his little secret on how to avoid the bottle neck at the top of the Big Dipper!
It is rumoured that a number of Harriers had also gone down in previous weeks in order to check out the course……. The one thing we discovered from our recce…. starting to run straight up the big dipper with no warm up is not a good idea, half way up oxygen debt kicks in and you think you’ll never reach the top let alone the finish….. So onto race day……
We made sure we got to candlestone suitably early in time for a good warm up. The race start was delayed for 15minutes and for some reason everyone set off up the dipper for a warm up – and one final check of the alternative ’sheep track’. A quick jog back down and the pre-race briefing began, then hurtling down the dipper arms flailing in a mad panic came Niki, Esther & Lou, just in time for the starting horn to run back up again!
Up the dipper….It doesn’t get any easier! Not sure if the warm up made any difference, about 50m from the top walking as quick as possible I saw James run past me, kept my head down and then found myself leaning on someone – it turned out to be Mark. Upon reaching the top of the first crest I discovered that my knees were no longer functioning correctly and I had the distinct impression that they were not going to support me much longer. Trying to figure out how to keep moving in a straight line in totally forgot about the ‘alternative’ route and just followed the line of runners heading up a sandy path. Reaching the top of this path I once again tried to start running – somehow my legs kept me upright – rumours are this wasn’t the case for everyone.
After the descent we headed back towards the car park and hit the road (aah nice tarmac – lovely) for a mile when I finally rediscovered the proper use of my legs and managed to start moving forward through the positions chasing James and then Mark.
The course crosses a footbridge, jumps a wall, crosses a field and another footbridge before heading for the next big ascent up a lane to run around the perimeter of the golf course.
We then reached the drinks station, the marshal’s just told me to go straight on down the valley; for some reason they didn’t offer me their mulled wine and sherry, I would have been very tempted!The route then follows a really fast steady descent down a small valley back down towards the road/river. From here a quick jaunt over the bridge and looping in through the sewage works (…nice…) you then run alongside the river (I just hope it was mud down there) before heading for the old dried up stream bed. Just before the finish you get the chance to clean your shoes off with a quick few stream crossings (icy) before a final sprint to the finish.
I really enjoyed the course and the race and would like to thank the Brackla Harriers (organisers) and all of the marshals for a great job. And thanks for the christmas pudding.
There were a few non-running harriers out on the course: Matt; Andy; Sam; Matthew & Rueben… possibly others, thanks to them for all of the support.
I’m not going to try and list all of the harriers running as I know I didn’t see everyone, but well done to all of you. We all now wait with baited breath for the race results & championship results tables to be produced.
Finally following the race Lou & Rob kindly offered everyone to come back to their house afterwards, after we all admired Lou’s newly decorated christmas tree we tucked into some fantastic Chilli drank a bit of wine/beer, ate cake and talked over the various tactics employed throughout the day.
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