It was billed as the glorious return of a fast and flat 10 mile road race that due to covid had not been run for a couple of years..... a 'road race'. Its at points like this that you wonder just what kind of person becomes a race director and if they are all just complete liars or haven't run the course they are in charge of, Or looked at a map, spoken with ANYONE who knows the area, ran the race or indeed could explain to them what a road is.
However team TRC set off for an adventure to Hayling Island in what can only described as the heaviest day of Monsoon Season, just about squeezing into the car puddle....... I mean park before sploshing our way to number collection. Anyone who made it this far with dry feet is superhuman because everywhere was a small pond getting bigger by the moment as the rain continued to hammer down. The team photo outside the community hall was abandoned as no one wanted to stand in another big puddle in yet more heavy rain, so we all huddled round with our bags in the middle like a dodgy Saturday night dance party. There was also a rather large queue of hundreds of runners waiting for the 8 toilets in the rain so the photo has as usual missed a few faces.
An announcement was made to remind runners the start was about a 5 min jog away and we better get out bums in gear, so with much regret we shed layers and went out into the downpour and splashed our way to the start. Once there we were informed of a 10 minute delay to the start...... which no one moaned about at all as everyone loved standing around in rain. It did however give a few people some time to find an additional bush to pee behind so silver linings and all that.
The organisers must have used those extra 10 minutes to send some mighty fine bribes to the rain gods and the rain eased while we were waiting and had stopped before anyone hit the first mile marker. What it hadn't done was remove the puddles that came up to ankle height, covered whole paths and were in abundance for the entire course. But we were off, we could see without rain in our eyes and we weren't too hot or getting sunburnt (which we would also have moaned about).
The course was as advertised in flatness, there were no mini mountains to climb with death defying drops the other side, it was reasonably flat throughout. We remained on road for a few miles before turning on a not advertised trail section which had large pot holes, all filled with water, sloppy mud and all the things not expected of a road race. Splashing and getting covered in mud were very much unavoidable for anyone including our resident mudophobe who was shall we say a tad 'grumpy' at the situation. Helped along by the catcalls and general piss taking of the rest of the club at every available opportunity along the way.
The trail section went to a sharp turnaround and back on itself and then carried on to some further trail section past the initial start of the section......just to really extend the trail section of the ' road race'. Once back onto the actual road all the mud was swiftly washed away as we hit even bigger puddles on the shore line which cleaned us all up nicely. This was another out and back section where we experienced some wind for the first time making it that little bit harder, although out and back sections do give you the change to see other runners and cheer them on. Or grimace and wave if you are unable to speak at that time. Once away from the sea front and the wind it was not long until we turned into the playing fields and the big finish line was in site ready for one last push to the end.
A nice addition was a free pair of warm and dry socks handed out at the end which we all definitely needed, and then we had all the lovely flapjack and coconut ice goodies baked by Caroline (which were rather lovely Thank you). These also called a stir in the sock queue with many people being told they should join TRC for such goodies or at the very least enter the stinger (which we can bill as a fast flat road race if we go by these standards).
Also..... the medal when turned upside down does look like a uterus right?
Massive congratulations to those who were ringing the PB bell at the end too!
Amanda Wilding Pinckney, Patricia Spodzieja, Nikki Gowers, Elizabeth White, Rob Kendall, Dean Lucas and Ian Page!
Next HRRL race is Gosport Half on 20th November, as ever the event page will updated with details in the run up so keep an eye out.
