Cotswold Way Relay

Although not strictly part of my 12 in 12 challenge this year, I thought I would mention my weekends running as it was a fantastic weekend of running and good to be part of a team event as opposed to just running for myself.

The Cotswold Way Relay is a ten stage event starting at Chipping Campden to the North of the Cotswold hills and finishing in the centre of Bath, near the Abbey. The Cotswold Way is one of Englands national trails and is approximately 103 miles from start to finish. The relay event, which started 20 years ago this year, splits the whole length into ten stages of between 11 and 20 kilometres. There is no baton handover between runners and instead (to facilitate the logistics of moving everyone around on a 100 mile race) there are ten mass starts at set times throughout the day corresponding to the finish times of the fastest runner from the previous stage.

In 2010, Portishead Running Club organised their first entry and we again entered in 2011. Unfortunately, this year, the previous organiser had moved to another club and so it fell on my shoulders to organise the event, enter everyone and sort out logistics. The logistics are the most complicated part and make the running quite simple. You need to makes sure that every runner makes it to their start point in good time to hear the briefing for that stage so that it can commence on time. You also need to make sure that they are welcomed and cheered at their finish line (didn't quite make everyone this year - sorry) and delivered back to their cars or taken onward and eventually enabling them to make their way back home. The race starts at 7am approximately 60 miles and 90 minutes away from Portishead which makes for a very early start. The race ends in Bath at approximately 6.40pm which means a very long day for anyone who is involved from start to finish (only me this year).

In 2010 I ran stage 10 (the glory leg into Bath) and last year I ran stage 7, the shortest stage, but by no means easy. The advantage in these later legs is that you don't have to get up quite so early and drive the full distance up to the starting line. Anyhow, I ended up this year running stage 1 as one of our runners (originally on stage 1) had a ankle injury and although they agreed to run a shorter leg, I ended up swapping with them.
Stage 1 was a lovely run starting by the church in Chipping Campden and running up the first hill into the Cotswolds. The only problem was that there was a pretty steep 200 metre downhill section followed by a 200m uphill section. I ran for the first 6-7 miles with a lady from Gloucester Running Club, but pulled away from her at the start of the big hill going up. I managed to overtake the "second lady" at the top of the big hill and stayed in front almost until the end when she overtook on a slippery section (I was in normal running shoes - a big mistake). She stayed ahead, but with me close behind until the last 200 metres when I put on a last sprint and overtook her with around 20 metres to go.

I was 21st out of 81 competitors which I was quite pleased with (25th in 2010 and 20th in 2011).
After the race I was driven by the stage 3 runner towards my car at Chipping Campden - unfortunately she did not have time to drive the full way as she had to get to her start (she was 5 mins late - sorry) so I ended up running a further 3 miles back to my car from a deserted B road on top of the Cotswolds. At least it was all downhill!

I got home at around 8pm with a takeaway fish and chips and slept very well that night!

On Sunday, I took part in (and won) the ad-hoc competition of the Adams Avery Orienteering Relay on Stock Hill in the Mendip hills of Somerset. I was on the third and final leg and although I pretty much made a mess of the first 5 controls, got better as I went along and really enjoyed it. It was just a pity that my quadriceps don't feel the same way. They are still complaining and I think a few days off running is in order this week to recover.

Still have to decide on July half marathon and need to do it pretty quickly!