17/18th August 2013- The Joust 24 Hour

A 24  hour endure set in Holt Castle outside Worcester. The course was a 5 mile circuit which went from the castle through fields adjacent the river Severn, a couple of cow fields with curious cows in. Into a hamlet with a pub which was a checkpoint and water station then through the church grave yard past, another field, through Top Barn activity centre and then a few more fields and back to the castle.

There was a small entry as it was its first year and was limited due to the size of the venue. With 5 teams, 2 pairs and 19 solo runners. The weather stayed reasonably dry despite threatening to pour down, but there was only a couple of light showers.

I started off quite well and soon got into a rhythm with my first few laps taking between 45 and 50 minutes each. I breaked more after and ran slower with my next few taking an hour each. The legs started to ache but we’re never too sore to run. There we’re quite a few gates and stiles which put a bit extra pain in climbing over when landing when jumping over.

The next few laps we’re around 75 minutes each and I had managed to reach nine laps before I would need a headtorch. On the ninth lap I did have to turn down the offer of a pint in the pub from some other solo runners  as I was worried about losing the light without a torch. I did my first night lap in about 95 minutes which totalled ten laps making it 50 miles in about eleven hours which I was happy with so I had a burger as a reward.

I ran my eleventh lap with a girl who was worried about getting lost in the dark, but I had to apologize for slowing her down despite my trying a bit more to run where I hadn’t been doing so before. After a pot noodle and a short break I went out a again on lap twelve. But this is where the boredom really brought my mood down and I saw maybe two runners all lap.

I got back after the twelfth lap and after doing some thinking I decided I wasn’t enjoying it anymore and didn’t see the point in carrying on so I retired after about 14 hours and 60 miles. I went to sleep in my tent and woke up not really regretting stopping despite still having miles in the tank and so packed up and went home.