Gloucester 20 – the races and the race

First things first, it’s a good job I don’t tip for a living based on what I wrote last week. The good news is that I’m pretty indecisive when it comes to horses, so I changed my mind on the selections I’d put here and actually did alright.

I had two 12/1 winners on Day 1 (Rock on Ruby and Balthazar King) which paid for Wednesday and Thursday, where I had a couple of big priced places. But the main focus of the week for me, as always, is on course on the Friday.

The first four races - including the Gold Cup as predicted - were a nightmare with not a single winner for me nor for pretty much anyone else I was with (apart from Tobe who had the Giant Bolster at 50s in the Gold Cup). Fortunately at that point my luck turned. Salsify at 8/1 came flying up the hill in the Foxhunters with Oscar Delta placed in third at 40/1. That put me even for the day, but the best was still to come…

One of the first things I learnt about Cheltenham is to study the form of the last three races on the train on the way over. That way, you’re not the worse for wear when making decisions. That paid off handsomely this year by backing Attaglance in the Martin Pipe Conditional’s. Whilst it was travelling well, it didn’t look like winning. That is, until the leading horse hit the fence at the last knocking it out of stride, and Attaglance was handily placed to take full advantage. At 31/1 on the Tote, it basically paid for the whole day out and some. I think that’s what they call a result!

The only other thing to report from the day is that combing my hair in a side parting is apparently completely unacceptable. I faced a barrage of abuse from my mates, and Scott even took a photo and posted it on Facebook to gauge opinion, which, I can report, appears to be divided. It’s a good job I’m middle-aged and don’t care about my image or I’d start to get a complex...

Enough about the racing and onto the race itself, the Gloucester 20

It is perceived wisdom in the marathon world that you cannot properly train your body for the last six miles, when your energy stores are depleted and you hit the wall, without doing serious damage to yourself. And that’s a risk not worth taking, hence why you don’t run anything more than 22 miles in training.

This much might be true, but it is the main reason why I forced myself to do the Gloucester 20. Primarily because taking part in a 20 mile road race that kicked off less than 36 hours after a 14 hour drinking session at the Gold Cup was never going to be anything other than hard work.

The start was pretty shambolic, but warmed my heart as these are the reasons why I’m proud of my roots and love the West Country. Basically, the police wanted £3,000 to close the road, so we had to walk over a mile from the registration point to the start (ideal when you’re running 20 miles, obviously). By the time they’d walked everyone there, it was one minute before the start time.

You then had to put your bag into the baggage area and I was in such a rush I handed my bag in without realising I still had my woolly hat on. So I had to carry that around with me for 20 miles too. We then filed onto one road, got told to go back in a car park, then there was a manic dash to another road and someone shouted go. All a bit haphazard, but to be honest I was just relieved to get away.

It was a gentle start out of an industrial estate and into the countryside via one reasonably busy road. My ‘plan’, other than to get around, was to do the first 3 miles slow, then do 14 at the pace I want to do the marathon in (one mile for each hour drinking on Friday as punishment!), then finish up with another 3 slow as a warm down.

I can report that doing the first three slow was never going to be a problem. In fact, I really struggled to get going and was fearing the worst for what was to come. I was also sweating buckets of booze, having decided to wear my hat for as long as possible to avoid having to carry it. I resembled Gazza in pre-season training, if you will – overdressed and sweating pure booze out of his system to lose weight.

I tried to up the pace a bit at mile four, but still couldn’t quite hit what I wanted to do and it wasn’t until we reached the first climb that I actually got myself into gear. I'm not sure what it was – probably that I had to work hard to get up it – but it really shook me out of my slumber, and I was off and away.

To cut a long story short, it was a really nice course. It was 2 miles out, then three laps of 5.5 miles of countryside, then 1.5 miles back. The laps section was never really flat, and had three differing climbs. One of them I don’t think I even realised was a climb on the first lap, but certainly did on the last one. A second that was gentle, but went on for a bit, then one pretty steep one that, on approaching it first time up, I immediately thought ‘this is going to be a killer after 17 miles’.  

Lap one was pretty uneventful apart from feeling quite good about myself as I was overtaking quite a lot of people. Not because I am any good, but because I started the first three slowly, so was now going faster than those who were similar to me but were going steady throughout.

Three laps around the picturesque Haresfield countryside

Lap two was pretty good, and I was feeling as close to normal as I was ever going to be. Normal, that was, until I got to the foot of the steep climb at 11.8 miles, and got lapped by the winner. Not very good for the confidence! But to be fair, I looked him up afterwards and he’s currently trying to get into the GB team for the Olympics so I’ll let him off…

By the time I started the third lap I was still feeling surprisingly alright but I was conscious that the sole of my right foot was beginning to rub on my shoe. This was due to my own stupidity, in that I packed a pair of socks that I’d never run more than 8 miles in. That’s a big no no for running, and a complete schoolboy error. Anyway, I persevered by counting down the miles to 17 when I could mentally take a break and start winding down.

As it happened, I got to the 17 mile marker and really struggled to slow down. On reflection, I think it was probably my sub-conscious telling me to hurry up and get the weight off of my foot, because by the time I finished it was really beginning to hurt. I finished in a respectable 2:41:25, which I’d have taken your arm off for had it been offered at the start. And then I trudged/limped the mile back to the showers with my body screaming at me from all parts.

The good news first. Not only did I finish it, I actually achieved better than what I set out to do – namely 17 miles at marathon pace rather than 14. The other good thing is that I did it whilst having run around like a lunatic all weekend and having drunk heavily. Two things that I won’t be doing in the run up to the marathon. However, there were two bits of bad news too.

Firstly, the blister has got a lot worse, so I now have about an inch and a half long, narrow blister on the sole of my right foot. It has meant I’ve barely been able to train this week which, given I’ve had about three interrupted weeks of training on the trot through illness and injury, is not good news. Even more so when I’m supposed to be at the peak of my training at the moment.   

The second bit of bad news is that whilst good for my state of mind that I completed 17 miles of marathon pace, it wasn’t good for my body. My right thigh didn’t react too well to being pounded for 20 miles and has been hurting quite a lot. It has taken until Thursday to calm down, which isn’t ideal, especially given I need to do another 20 mile run first thing Saturday morning.

Anyway, I’ve now got just 10 more days of hard training to get through before starting to taper. Whilst that’s good, if I get injured now it will be unbearable, so I’ve got to respect the aches and pains and not push too hard at the moment.

I can’t quite believe it has come around so quickly and, whilst my training hasn’t gone exactly to plan (I’m not sure I’d believe many people who said there’s has), I have to be satisfied that I’ve managed a half marathon PB in a monsoon, and a 20 mile race with a hangover along the way. Which should hopefully, fingers crossed, bode well for the big day, which, coincidentally, is exactly one month today...  

And I’m telling you this because…
I’m running the 2012 London Marathon for the Hertfordshire Community Foundation (HCF).

If you feel inclined to sponsor me to help the Hertfordshire Community Foundation continue their great work, you can do so here:  http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/BenWood2