Sunday 11th November 2018
In a weekend where the weather forecast to be torrential and gale force all weekend, it ended up torrential and gale force for the whole Saturday until early on Sunday morning when we took part in the Grand Union Canal Half Marathon. The Saturday downpour had brought miserable amounts of rain so on Saturday night, I kept checking the event website to see whether the race would get cancelled. It wasn’t.
On Sunday morning, off we went to the Cassiobury Park in Watford on Sunday. On our way there, we drove past numerous puddles with some were very deep. We parked the car at the carpark and boarded on the coach provided by the organiser (with a fee of £7) to the start line in Cowley Park in Uxbridge. The park was soaked. The canal towpath was horrible. Although the sun did come up eventually just before the race, it would never quick enough to dry the mud.
Suffice to say that conditions were challenging. I’d expect a very very muddy terrains which, by comparison, has made Hemel look like a paradise.
John and I were joined by our fellow Comets RRC Jacqui Reid. She was freshly crowned the Centurion Marathon title after completing her 100th Marathon 2 weeks ago in Dublin. Due to the towpath is very narrow, the organiser split the runners into 4 groups with the fastest to start first. Jacqui, being a fast runner, was in the first wave. I was in the 3rd wave and John was in the 4th wave. There must be a 5-minute gap between waves.
During my run, a lot of time I was basically concentrating on not falling over as there were puddles that spanned the entire narrow towpath for 12 miles (we ran our last mile inside the Cassiobury Park). I hate mud. It just sucked. I ended up running zigzag like dancing just to avoid the mud until between mile 10 and 11 when I saw a big puddle covering the entire width of the towpath. I just stopped and said seriously? I had no choice but had to run cross this big muddy puddle. It was just massively annoying to run the rest of nearly 3 miles in socked feet. I finished in 2:14’46” and my average split is 10’18”. John finished in 2:35’51”. We missed Jacqui at the finish as she probably had long gone. We only found out later from her Facebook page that she came first in her age category finishing in 1:44’32” and she was one of the first 10 females crossing the finishing line. Well done Jacqui. You have inspired me and John and showed us how it is done.
Apart from the mud which is outside the control of the organiser, this event is very well organised with mile marks every mile and water stations every other mile. There are plenty of portaloos at the start and finish. The race Marshals are enthusiastic and shouted out encouraging words to us. The finisher’s medal is very pretty which is such a consolation of the muddy course.