Steppingley Step

Barton-le-Clay, Bedfordshire, Sunday, November 3, 2013

Dave Robson

Melanie and I had hoped to do the Hardmoors Goathland marathon this Saturday, but my nephew has chosen to get married that day. Some people just don’t look at race listings when arranging these things …

Dave prepares for a long one ...

So we decided to look at doing something a week earlier. We toyed with doing Rivington and we had done the previous two races in that series, Girizedale and Howgills, but for some reason that I can’t recall, we chose the Steppingley Step, a 26m LDWA event starting from Barton-le-Clay in Bedfordshire. A four hour drive from Durham. We decided to treat ourselves and stay the night before and after. After finding a nice new Premier Inn near Bedford, I managed to book us in a different one, south of Dunstable. What is a few more miles when you have driven that far, I told myself !

Later when looking at the race details, I realised that I had run from Barton-le-Clay two years ago when I did the Shillington Shuffle. I couldn’t remember the route for that one very well, which is unusual for me as I can often run through race routes in my mind sometimes years after I have done them. There could well be a medical definition for this condition …

I later realised that the Shillington Shuffle, the Sundon Saunter and the Steppingley Step (the LDWA has particular fun with names for its events) take turns to be held and that people who had done all three in a row got a special badge and certificate. This would have been something different, but sadly I didn’t grasp this last year.

So we turn up at registration at 8.30 prepared to set off at 9.00 as instructed (walkers had left at 8.00). After asking my name, the next question was ‘What time would you like to start ?’. I guess this might have happened two years ago, but I had forgotten and I stumbled, unsure of what to say, I wasn’t used to having that sort of freedom of choice. Also Melanie was in a different queue as there were different desks depending on surname, so I couldn’t have a chat. ‘Its okay you can change your mind, just let me know’ the registration official said seeing my uncertainty. I went for 8.45 and went and chatted to Melanie who opted for that time as well.

We got ourselves together and went outside at the appropriate time to find a large group of runners from MK Lakeside Runners who were all going off at the same time and off we went as a group. Melanie and I were well prepared for this unmarked route, we had the route on our Garmins, a set of very detailed race instructions and a map showing the route (all downloaded from the event website). As I need glasses for reading and for nothing much else, we adopted the approach we had successfully used at a previous event, Melanie reads out the next set of instructions and I look out for whatever we need to look out for, a road junction, a footpath, a yellow topped way marker or in more than one case, a rubbish bin. Melanie reckons she is poor at navigation, but I have no doubt she could find her way round without difficulty now, she is now fluent in LDWA abbreviations – WM, FB, FP, KG, BL etc. The other advantage of her reading the instructions is that she doesn’t run as quickly, something I appreciate 🙂

The course was initially pretty flat, but in about a mile we encountered the biggest hill of the day at Sharpenhoe. Lots of steps up, it felt like a Hardmoors event. Good views from the top, it was a sunny day though pretty windy. Then downhill towards the first of many lovely villages, Harlington. Many of these villages had attractive churches, some with the bells ringing, and cottages with thatched roofs. Then on to Westoning, which was equally as attractive. The next village, Steppingley, was the second and third checkpoint as the course was basically a figure 8 with Steppingley in the middle. The food here was good – lots of different wraps, jelly, tinned fruit, juice, tea. It was good to know what would be waiting for us in 8 or so miles. Steppingley is on a small hill, so we were running downhill after the checkpoint which felt good although we were aware there would be a climb to get back there. The route was very varied, sometime round the edges of fields, sometimes straight through fields, small sections of tarmac, different types of woodland with the sunlight filtering through. Nothing lasted too long and we changed direction frequently, so there was lots to see and enjoy. It was an excellent route (apparently there have been lots of changes from the route three years ago).

We made it back to Steppingley, consumed more wraps and headed off well refreshed for the last ten miles. On to Flitwick and Flitton and on to Pulloxhill with its water tower that can be seen from far away. Here was the last checkpoint. We had thought that we would not get such a spread as we had had at Steppingley, there was only just over 3 miles to go to the finish. We were expecting a few nibbles and drinks. But no, there was a feast laid out before us. Scones covered in lemon curd, jam tarts, crisps, twiglets, pancakes, chocolates …. We probably stayed longer than we should have done.

I lost a bit of motivation in the last three miles, I think I hadn’t fully recovered from York two weeks ago. Melanie did Jedbugh a week ago so she hadn’t found this one the easiest one for her either. She has now completed twenty marathons in sixteen months, an amazing achievement especially considering what she went through in 2011 and 2012.

We made it back in 5hr 22min which we were happy with. The finishing meal was basic, but the event was amazingly cheap to enter and one of the advantages of doing a race in the south was that it was good to meet up with some old friends from the marathon circuit that we hadn’t seen for a while.

A long way to travel, but a lovely way to spend the weekend

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