Boddington 100km

Events procured meant that I was able partake in my first 100km. I had always wanted to give one a bash and with Nik away and my crewing duties for a friend cancelled due to injury , yippee doodle dandy there was nothing barring my participation. That is of cause me reckoning without a dog with dodgy guts. With a start time of 8 am and an hours journey to get there  I skipped out of bed at 5.00am –  plenty of time thought I –  to be greeted by what can only be described as carnage, a sh!tty carnage at that. Boy was it horrible. I thus spent the next 15 minutes on hands and knees sanitising the kitchen. Even I couldn’t be so horrible as to leave it for the lad to clean up when he crawled out his pit. It wasn’t so much cleaning and wiping but I had to scrape the bloody stuff up with a knife due to a special sh!t bonding agent which meant it had wielded itself to the wood. It was minging reader, truly hideous and what’s worse a week later I think I still have some under my finger nail.

Anyway where was I, oh yes, so due to the above I was running late. So an hour’s drive thus took eerrr a little less than that, but still driving with care and due diligence -  Officer. I arrived with time to spare………or so I thought. Whether it was the velocity at which I had travelled down the motorway or having to sniff the stuff so early in the morn, but was I desperate to dump or what……. I was indeed desperate and the queue that trailed around the bloke’s loo meant that I wasn’t getting rid of it there any time soon. Indeed such was my advanced state of needyness I was ready to find a nicely pruned privet in the immaculate lawns of Boddington Hall and do my business there and then. But, when things are at their most disparate I always like to think the god of running will intervene and so it  was that on my way to compost the lawns I earwigged the holy words – portaloo. Hallelujah. And what’s more an unused portaloo (boy did I christen it). Duly relieved I dillied and dallied getting myself ready, making especially sure my box of grocerys was ready to be taken to the drink station out on the course. And so at  8.00am off we went. In my limited experience of these things I have found that with the longer  races there is a kind of little ‘settling in’ period where upon everyone takes a mile or so to let it sink in what they are letting themselves in for  but here there was no such grace. The leaders bolted away as though they were in a 10km not a bleedin race 10 times longer – thus within 5 minutes I was looking around wondering were everyone had gone. Never mind I thought……hare and tortoise, hare and tortoise. I wasn’t alone for long as runners taken part in the marathon and 50 km started filing past me with one or two going alarming quickly and so it was for the next 5 or 6 hours. Every now and then I would be passed by the leaders in the 100 km, still travelling extremely fast, ( I must say at this point that the 100 km race was incorporating an international race between England, Sotland, Ireland and Wales so they were top blokes and it was also open to anyone who had nothing better to do on a pleasant Saturday morn – hence me being there )

After 5 laps I began to feel uncomfortable, my bodily functions were mucking me about and it wasn’t the best infact it was bloody horrible. I plodded on grumbling away to myself until it all came to a head ……a turtles head, if you get me drift. I lifted me knees stuck me chest out and ran like buggery to the portaloo situated one mile away at the drinks station. Happily ensconced on the throne the world and his dog exited my arse and duly made me feel a whole lot better and probably 10lbs lighter’ if nothing else though it made the remaining 5 hours a lot more pleasant experience. Out on the course things hadn’t changed, England held the first three places and were having private race between themselves whilst the other countries were having varying degrees of success. Things had settled down in my life as well and I continued on my merry little way, I was however, the longer the race continued, getting a little fazed by the drink station area. Since the 50 km had finished the drinks were on a self serve basis, (except of course if you were running for your country whereupon you had multitudes of minions dealing with your every request) I could cope with that as more often than not I was stopping to feed anyway. No, what really got my consternation was the foot high grass verge which you had to mount in order to the table with said refreshment on. Boy oh boy did it start to get hard to clamber oneself up, so come the final few laps I really could have done with someone tossing me a rope and hoisting me up that there precipice and to say nothing of the leap of faith one had to do when suitably refreshed. Never mind I thought when I’m an England international…………..mmmmmmmmm……….. some time later I completed my 28 laps and ran the final ½ mile to the finish at Boddington Hall, happy to finish and even happier as now I had no running planned between me and my holidays in Florida. Oh happy days indeed.

‘A rest is as good as a run someone once said’ I intend to fine out.

Ole Creaky  Knees

Boddington 100km – 8hrs 45 – 11^th place.