I was invited along to this F3 event by my pacing friend Paul Addicott who had been asked to provide the pacers for the first time at this event. I was asked to pace the 2 hour slot.
I found the registration to be straightforward and I travelled up by car from my Milton Keynes home to the event via the M1/M25/M4 in just over an hour. I parked at the official car park as advertised on their website for a charge of £5.00
It was an easy 10 min walk from the car park to the race village to collect my race bib and pacers T-shirt and meet the other pacers.
There was a baggage area here at a cost of £5.00 which is unusual as this is normally included in the entrance fee. There were stalls selling running sundries and refreshments along with post race massage. Portaloos were dotted around and the PA announcer made it clear there were extra toilets opened just outside the park that the race village was in.
The race start was on the opposite side of the River Thames and a 5 min walk to here from the race village.
We made our way over to the start and there were more portaloos here. The start area was roped off and in 7 start wave times; 1.30/1.45/2.00/2.15/2.30/2.45 and then last was the wave for the 10K option.
The idea of the staggered wave starts was to eliminate congestion in the early stages as the first few miles were often narrow along the Thames and in wooded areas.
I made myself known to all the runners in my wave pen that I was the pacer for 2 hrs and that I would be pacing 9.05 mins to finish approx 30/40 secs under allocated time; (actual 2 hr time is 9.09 pace)
The race started promptly at 8.30am and every 5 mins another wave started so at 8.40 I set off.
The start followed a smooth flat trail on grass alongside the scenic Thames and into wooded areas for the first few miles. Very narrow in many places and a little slippy/muddy due to recent downpours. I made everyone around me aware of puddles, roots and low branches as we made our way towards the first water stop. Rather surprisingly the first water station was 4.3 miles in (usually 3.1 on most races),and very disappointingly in plastic cups which is nigh on impossible to drink from whilst running. There was also a fallen tree that we had to run around just before 5 miles but this was marshalled perfectly. There were 2 more water stations around the course. There were 3 road crossings to manoeuvre over the remainder of the race that the marshalls were actually stopping runners as traffic had priority. The first two I didn't have to break stride for as the road was clear but the last one just before mile 12 brought myself and my followers to a standstill for approx 10 secs.
All the way I had been checking my Garmin to the mile markers and these had been very accurate up to mile 10 with miles 11 & 12 ever so slightly early but as I had paced as promised I was on course to finish in just over 1.59.20 as planned so we ease people home over the last mile. I didn't need to panic as I had those extra seconds in the bank,however as I was telling everyone around me we were well under the 2 hrs it soon become apparent that as my Garmin signalled 13 miles I couldnt see Windsor Castle - where the finish line was???
Major panic set in as I double checked my splits and distances and yep I was approaching the 13.1 expected finish time and we approached a road bridge only to be told "only 700" to go???
As I came over the road bridge I could see the castle in the distance and thought immediately there was no way I could reach there within the 40 secs I needed to as my Garmin showed 1.59.16:(
Needless to say I sped up automatically leaving the large group I have accumulated over the race standing :-(( in my attempt to get home in time. I had no chance in reality as I came home in 2.01.24 with that last 1/4 mile run at 7.48 pace lowering my ave for the run to 9.03 for 13.38 miles.
The fact I had let others down really hurt me personally as I pace events to help people reach their goals, but I still had lots of thanks from people that still gained PB's from my help and from those who had just missed out due to the inaccuracy of the distance.
The last 1.1 miles was in fact 1.38 so that extra distance ruined my memory of what otherwise was a very picturesque scenic run along the Thames in a beautiful location on almost flat mixed terrain.
The medal was very nice and the goody bag contained an energy bar, heat wrap and a few leaflets,water and banana.
Finding out afterwards the last few years has been similar with the water station issues/long distances simply hurt even more. If only we were made aware but it's happened so....!??
Its these small details that really make the runner go away with a sense of 'I can't wait to return next year' mentality, but I can only assume a lot will go away feeling let down and these will not return unfortunately for a long time if ever!
F3 events run lots of events and if they read this I urge them to please look at making sure the water is every 5K and in bottles, and that the distance Is remeasured. Lots of runners will say 'oh but as it's Trail you can run a bit longer than usual' but the bottom line is ALL 7 of our pacers were over a minute over their times which I have never to this day heard of