Sunday 10th November 2019
10:00am
On Sunday 10th November, John and I did the Purple Patch Grand Union Canal Half Marathon. So first thing first, I knew this was going to be a very cold and wet and muddy event. The organiser even put up on their Facebook page strongly advising runners to wear fell shoes as the towpath was soaked with water and mud after the downpour for most days during the week prior to Sunday. Since I didn’t want to repeat my last years’ experience treading onto a huge muddy puddle on mile 10 and had to run the last 3 miles with very heavy and muddy feet, I didn’t wear any socks. If the mud got inside my Vibram Five-Fingers trainers, it wouldn’t be trapped. As far as I can remember, this must be my 1st half marathon race without wearing socks. It was so so cold with only about 3 or 4oC to start with. Keeping my body temperature up was paramount considered I am susceptible to cold and flu during winter. I wore an extra layer of a technical t-shirt underneath my long sleeved Helly Hanson then topped with the Comets Club Vest.
This is quite an unusual event in which runners can choose to drive to the finish and board on a coach to the start. When we arrived at the carpark at Cassiobury Park in Watford (the finish), we noticed the carpark is no longer free on Sundays. The signed showed from 10am to 6pm “Every Day” requires park charges. It is a cashless carpark and it only accepts card payment by “Mobile Phone App”. The complication is: the app wouldn’t take any payment at all until 10am sharp. But we would be at the start at Cowley Recreation Ground 13 miles away in Uxbridge running at 10am and our phones would have been with the baggage storage van. We started to get panic as none of us want to pay £60 fine. We sought the advice from the organiser but they only realised on that morning the carpark is now chargeable on Sundays. They contacted the Carpark company which collects the parking fees on behalf of Watford local authority to try to ask them to waive the parking fees. However, they were told that there was no exception but they would see whether they could give some concession to the runners but there was no guarantee. We didn’t really get a definitely answer by the organiser at all. I deposited my rucksack to the baggage storage van at 9:45 without paying the parking fee. I just took a chance.
We bumped into our fellow member Jacqui Reid. Jacqui said she was having hamstring injury and was still recovering from a marathon a week ago.
To avoid the congestion on the narrow towpath, runners were split into 4 waves with 5 minutes interval. Jacqui dashed off in wave 1, John and I were rather meekly making our way to the wave 3 and wave 4. I started at 10:10am and John started 5 minutes after me. Along the towpath, I was greeted by thick pools of mud which I tried my very best to sidestep them while some very brave runners ran through the mud pools and splashed the mud to themselves as well as fellow runners – unfortunately, I was splashed for a few times!! This Grand Union Canal course is notoriously muddy and slippery. I heard the sound of someone falling down behind me. I turned to look and saw a guy who was caked in mud having slipped over. I asked him: “Are you OK? Do you need help?” He got up by himself and said: “I’m alright. Thanks.” I then continued my run. I was not so sure whether he was alright or not.
I was not making good progress. I was never able to get down sub 10 and half minutes a mile most of the time. I spent a lot of time with my head down focusing on the ground to try to avoid the muddy puddles. This was definitely not a good posture and had slowed me down. I crossed the finish line in a very slow pace of 2:18’08. I was disappointed but not surprised considered my level of fitness is declining and the wind was getting stronger and colder and a drizzly shower had set in, making the progress on the towpath more difficult. Overall, I was not too unhappy considered there were still more than 100 runners (all categories) behind me out of 439 runners.
| My Position | Total | Percentage | |
| My position from total | 323 | 439 | 73.58% |
| My position from female | 113 | 190 | 59.47% |
| My position from age catalogue | 15 | 26 | 57.69% |
John finished in 2:48’28”. John twisted his knee in Stroud Half Marathon 3 weeks before and he was still feeling pain. He said his knee kept playing up during the run and he thought he might have to DNF as the pain was searing.
John was featured in the official photographer – Sussex Sport Photography’s website:
http://sussexsportphotography.blogspot.com/2019/11/
When I pointed out his photo on the website, he was joking that this must be a rare official photo he didn’t give a big smile to the camera as he hobbled round the towpath in agony. For full results, please visit:
http://racetecresults.com/results.aspx?CId=16586&RId=462&EId=3&dt=0
As soon as I had finished, I immediately logged on the Parking App and paid the parking charges. I couldn’t do retrospectively so I just put down 4 hours from 1pm to 5pm. It only costs £3.80 to park for 4 hours. Just in case I receive a ticket, I can appeal with a very good reason and I have evidence I eventually paid the parking charges after finishing my race. I have signed up the same event in April 2020 (the Spring event is usually drier and warmer). I wonder whether the organiser would come up with a good solution!!