Written by James Belton
I decided to take part in the Oldham Way Ultra (Now the Red Rose Ultra) as a way to judge my current fitness in preparation for another race later this year…….it turns out that I’m nowhere near where I want to be. This race was way tougher than I had expected.
Registration was quick and easy and we were soon stood at the start line on a cold Sunday morning. After a quick race briefing we were off and almost instantly heading uphill. I’d promised myself I was going to take this race steadily and not get carried away as I normally do. I felt pretty comfortable walking the up-hills and running everything, keeping my pace at around 7min/KM. The first checkpoint came and went without me even noticing I’d passed it. I think it was set slightly off the trail and we were belting it downhill at the time. Before too long we’d made it to Checkpoint 2 though.
After quickly refilling my water bottles and grabbing a small bag of Jelly Babies we were back off through some farm land. The weather was actually starting to get pretty warm but the ground was really quite wet under foot and my feet were getting pretty wet. Stupidly I opted not to do anything about the slightly gritty feeling in my socks and carried on, turning onto the canal and arriving at Checkpoint 3. The canal stretch of the race seemed to go on forever and the weather was getting really quite warm at this point (most people had dressed for cold weather having looked at the forecast) and I was now getting through my water a lot more quickly. We turned off the canal and through a bit of a housing estate. A few people seemed to get a bit confused around here but I followed the way-markers and soon arrived at Daisy Nook country park and Checkpoint 4.
From here on in the course gets a lot steeper. Having left the checkpoint we were soon back in the hills and the pace dropped. I actually quite enjoyed being back on steep terrain as the flatter ground along the canal had started to get quite repetitive. We walked the up-hills and enjoyed the down-hills whilst taking time to stop at the tops of the hills to enjoy the views. I was now regretting not cleaning the mud out of my shoes as my right foot was starting to feel pretty sore but for some reason I still didn’t bother to stop and do anything about it.
Checkpoint 5 arrived and proved to be a bit of a turning point for me. I’d actually managed to maintain a fairly reasonable pace up until then but within a few miles had lots all desire to run. I felt completely drained of energy, didn’t want to eat anything and was struggling along on a foot that felt as if it was only being held together by my Inov-8s. It was a long old slog through rolling hills by myself before I reached Checkpoint 5. Just as I was arriving at Dovestones I was actually overtaken by some runners that I’d been running with earlier in the day. They had actually been ahead of me but a navigational error had slowed them down. I eventually arrived at Checkpoint 6 and my mood was lifted by the knowledge that I was now only 10km from the finish.
A note to anyone running this race in future……the bigger hills come right at the end. Within a few minutes of the checkpoint we were heading back uphill and it was a biggie. This is where I made my first navigational error…….taking directions. As I was getting to the top of the hill a lady that was out walking her dog told me “when you get to the monument at the top of the hill you follow the path down the hill to the right”……which is what I did. As I got towards the bottom of the hill I looked at my map and, although it looked about right, couldn’t see where the trail continued through the fields ahead of me. Some other runners who I can only assume had followed me appeared behind me. We asked a passing cyclist where exactly we were and he pointed out that we’d actually come down the wrong side of the hill. Gutted. We slogged back up the hill and along a trail to our right. Eventually we were running down the correct side of the hill. My slowing pace led to me doing a bit of a walk/run along the roads leading into Diggle. I now felt like I was getting somewhere. Diggle hotel came into view and there was a large crowd of supporters outside with a big box of Jelly Babies. I took a handful and carried on. Again the route got steeper but I could feel that I was getting close to the finish. Feeling my spirits lifted I put my map away and carried on. At the top of the hill I could see the reservoir down in the valley. Brilliant…..”just keep following the signs”…..that was my second navigational error. In my fatigued state I hadn’t factored in that the Oldham Way is actually a circular route and I’d now gone past the turning that would have led me down the hill to the finish line. By the time I realised I was a few kilometers past the turning and and the in no mood to turn back. I took the decision to go off trail and cut down via the most direct route. The ground underfoot very quickly became boggy and unstable making it hard to maintain any sort of pace. Eventually I reached the road that I should have turned onto and ran the last couple of Kilometers to the finish line.
What had started off as an ”enforced long training run” had proven to be a lot more than that. It turns out that it had taken me 5hrs to cover the last 15 miles. In those 5hrs I’d decided that I was going to pack all this distance running stuff in and find a new pastime. This didn’t last and within minutes of crossing the line I was itching to go again. I may well be back next year, hopefully without making the same stupid mistakes. It was a great learning experience.
Learning points:
- Be sure to clear crap out of your shoes.
- Pay attention to your map.
- Don’t take directions from random dog walkers.
- Circular walking routes just keep going……be careful not just to keep following the markers.