parkrun tourism: Pomphrey Hill

At the weekend, my wife and I headed off again to try out another parkrun. This time, a Christmas party in Bristol with my wife's family was the excuse. There are four parkruns in and around Bristol: Ashton Court, Little Stoke, Pomphrey Hill and Chipping Sodbury. There is also one in Bath. As we were staying in Keynsham the two most logical options were Pomphrey Hill and Bath, and despite the worrying aspect of the name, we went for Pomphrey Hill.

As luck(?) would have it, Ira Rainey (one of them there Twitter folk: @IraRainey) was run director for the day, so I had a ready source of information for the event, and it would be a good excuse to meet him face to face. (In a public environment, in case he turned out to be a mad axe-murderer.) He proved to both supply good information, recommending trail shoes rather than road shoes, and not be a mad axe-murderer (at least, not on a Saturday morning...)

A cold and frosty morning for a run. (Credit: Ira Rainey)

I wasn't too keen on the idea of three laps, but on the other hand, I'd raced in the Street 5k series early in the week, and that consisted of five laps, so three didn't seem quite so bad. The run briefing was fun and interactive, and definitely one that other parkruns could learn from. For example, asking if any runners have hit an "anniversary run" helps to avoid cliquishness that might otherwise set in. With all that done, we were asked to step back behind the line, which ruined my cunning plan to shave half a second off my finishing time!

Pomphrey Hill is quite a small parkrun, typically attracting less than 100 runners: with this in mind, and a look at previous results, I knew that I should be running in and around the top 10, an unusually lofty position, and one that normally means I've set off far too fast!

So, the course:
In many ways, of the local parkruns I've done in the past couple of months, this one was most similar to our own at Longrun Meadow. It was run entirely on paths around a playing field, though they varied between light gravel, tarmac and bark. The major difference was the hill. Longrun Meadow is pretty pancake like. Pomphrey Hill, as the name might suggest, is not. The cry of "Up Pomphrey!" during the run briefing gave me the idea that this possibly was not "just" a hill. Actually, as Ira pointed out at the end, it's only actually just under 40 ft of climb. However, the steepness, combined with the fact that this was the spongy bark-covered part of the course made it more sapping than perhaps it should have been. Of course, what goes up must come down, and in its own way, the descent was as difficult as the ascent: the frosty morning meant that despite the salt that had been put down, footing was a little hairy on the tarmac path back down the hill.

The great advantage of multiple laps is the obvious fact that after the first time around, you know what's coming and can adjust your pace in anticipation: be that slowing for a hill, or accelerating because there isn't far left. The disadvantage is that when you have just got to the top of a hill, you are aware that you still have to run up it another twice!! Still, on balance I think I actually quite enjoyed the shorter laps, as it helped me to maintain a more consistent pace than I typically manage at Longrun Meadow.

Back to my run:
I spent much of the race in tenth place, and pushed up to eighth on the climb Up Pomphrey on the final lap. Despite actually being slower up and down the hill on my third lap, I held on to eighth place, and even put in a trademark sprint finish to cement it. Once I'd finished I looped back on the course a little bit to cheer on my wife, who was coming around to start her final lap, and had a chat to a couple of the other runners. Unsurprisingly for a parkrun, particularly a small one, everyone was very friendly and chatty: it's great to be part of such a nice community, even when miles from home!

Final analysis: I finished in 21:05, my second fastest parkrun anywhere, which was something of a surprise given how much harder the course felt (and the fact that my watch said 21:22, but no more about that!) My wife completed her first parkrun since July, since when she has been beset with chest problems. All in all, a good fun morning, and a course we both want to go back to.

Brent Knoll: race report

In mid-October, I completed my second half-marathon, Exeter's Great West Run (you can read about how I did here), which was my last major race of the year. However, to end my season, I decided to book in the Brent Knoll race. Brent Knoll is a 137 metres (449 feet) high hill a couple of miles from Burnham-on-Sea. Apparently, one of King Arthur's knights, "Ider son of Nuth", went to the hill on a quest to slay three giants. Or so says Wikipedia. While I didn't spot any giants, I can report that the hill itself certainly felt like a giant one!

The race started at a very sociable time: 11:30. I know that it isn't really a practical time to start a summer race, but at this time of the year, I certainly appreciated the later start. I travelled up on my own, and didn't know of anyone else doing the race, but as I was idling around waiting for everything to get going, I heard a cry of "Ben". I ignored it. Yes, I'm called Ben, and yes, that's what was shouted, but I just assumed it was for someone else. When the shout was repeated, louder, I decided to pay some attention, and saw Rob, Kerry, Chris, Eliza and Louise from my running club!

Louise, Eliza, Chris and me, looking very
clean prior to the race. (Photo credit: Rob Murr)

After posing for a few photos, we headed off to the start line, where I saw a fellow parkrunner, Andy, and had a quick chat to him. Before we knew it though, the (pretty quiet) announcer at the start called 3-2-1-Go, and we shot off. Knowing that Andy tends to beat me at parkrun, I let him ahead of me, but then stuck pretty close behind him. At least, I did until I saw him hopping out of a muddy puddle: his shoe had come off! The route, which heads out from Burnham to Brent Knoll, is flat for the first mile and a half, which I completed in about 7:30 min/mile. The subsequent mile and a half was done at about 10:50 min/mile. That mile and a half included the two significant hill climbs.

The first climb was the smaller of the two, but the terrain made it, in my opinion, much the harder. It was the slowest part of the race, and there were a couple of points that I was genuinely on my hands and feet, scrambling for some, any, sort of grip. More than once a fistful of grass stopped me from slipping back down the slope. To add to the chaos, everyone had their own idea of which route was the best, and this resulted in mass of bodies all frantically trying to just reach the top. Despite my worries that it would only take one overeager person near the top to slip and take us all out, the climb was eventually completed, and the course levelled back out for a while.

I would love to say that the level section allowed me to regain my energy and breath to attack the second hill. Actually, I just ran like a mad person to try and make up for the "time lost" scrambling up the hill, and as a result I slowed to a walk almost as soon as the second incline began. The footing was much better this time though, and after a while there were even steps. Oh, the luxury. Despite this, no one around me looked to even be contemplating running, and I certainly wasn't going to be the only idiot! But on reaching the top, the first stride off the step was back into a run. No time to stop and admire the wondrous views, ya know, this is a race!

Okay, I did have a glance around and take in what I could, and it was stunning, but I certainly didn't have the time to do it justice. A quick half loop of the top, and we were heading back down again. For this section of the race I have to thank the chap in front of me, who demonstrated an effective technique which I shamelessly copied. I'm sure all fell runners are aware of it, but it is essentially to continue to lean slightly forwards, and to zig-zag down the hill. The pair of us passed a number of runners as we descended. In the back of my mind, the next descent was starting to loom large: I'd struggled to scramble up it, how the heck was I going to safely get down it?!

Well, as it turns out, with a commando roll.

My mind began to buzz about the hill as we approached it: I didn't know how people would be attempting it: crawling back down, scrambling, sliding? It turned out, just running. The runner who was now in front of me (not the downhill expert) lost his footing at one point and slid a couple of metres on his bum, and then in the same place, my foot went completely from under me. I have little recollection of exactly how I rolled, but the mud was on my elbow, back and bum. Thankfully, after one roll I was back on my feet, and still running down the hill at pace. Amazingly too, I'm bruise-free!

With that descent safely (ish) navigated, it was just the level slog back to the start/finish, though by this stage, my legs were feeling decidedly tired! With just over a mile to go I was passed by another runner, and after a short argument, I convinced my legs to speed up a little and keep pace with him. I essentially dragged myself along behind him, and then, like the bastard that I am, I found that little bit extra and passed him in a sprint finish.

In fact, I was then told off by Rob and Kerry, as I'd ruined their photos by running too fast. They suggested that I go back and do the finish again to get better ones. I demurred.

I finished with a time of 51:11, which was probably faster than I was expecting to go, although the conditions were probably better than in the past couple of years, which I'd used as my benchmark for times. Andy came in about a minute after me, having lost his shoe twice more during the race: possibly tighter lacing is needed! I was surprised, but pleased, to receive a finisher's medal, as I hadn't seen anything about one in the race information!

So, it might have seemed mad to make my celebratory end of season race a muddy hill climb, but all in all, I had a great time, and will probably be back again next year!