Author: Nick Hudson

We entered this race as we thought it would be a nice end to Howard’s marathon training. Some Jags had run the race last year and said the whole thing was fabulous, plus assured me it wasn’t XC – I am not wading through water in November! Howard and I have got to the end of his training feeling exhausted and desperate to get to Spain for a long weekend away, so getting up early on Sunday to drive to Thetford forest wasn’t ever so appealing. Howard has also had a bit of sciatica which I hoped was “Maranoia” – why now!? After him resting for a week, we decided to bimble the race; neither of us are used to trail anyway.
The weather was beautiful and we found a number of people we knew had also entered the race and quite a few Coltishall Jaguars too so it was good to catch up with everyone and get a team photo. The race was a charity event with no UKA affiliation but Chip Timing UK kindly offered to donate chip timing as it was to be stop watch timing otherwise. The start of the race featured a Zumba warm up and I’m surprised how many runners joined in! I will happily do choreographed moves in my fitness classes but prancing about and stretching before a race isn’t advisable in my book so I snuck off did a short warm up run.
The route was through the Thetford forest park paths and was beautiful! The path was firm underfoot (apart from a short, uphill sandy stretch), lined with autumnal leaves and thankfully not muddy. After a 2k bimble Howard suddenly overtook the runners in front of him and I spent 8k chasing him through the forest, worried he would do his back in and need help! The only time he slowed down was to stop at the water station and admittedly it was distracting; water, squash, fruit juice, wine gums, licorice all-sorts, jelly babies and Jaffa Cakes!
Fortunately Howard is ok and is confident that he will be ok next Sunday. Oh and by making me chase him, I finished as 9th lady in 52:35 which is pretty fast for me over trail! The marshals all the way round were just the loveliest people and the medal at the end was huge! We also got two huge bacon butties plus two hot drinks for £6 all-in (sorry Paul Emery!) . I’d definitely recommend this event and would love to run it again next year. I’m usually a bit rubbish over trail as my IT Band starts to pull but this event plus the Blickling Night Trail 10k has made me want to strengthen my legs and try some more trail routes. It will be good to do something different from the Norfolk Race Calendar and bloomin’ marathon training!