Thunder Run in the Rain and Mud
Chris Smith / 10.08.2009
The first running of the Adidas Thunder Run 24 Hour 10k Team Relay TrailRace 1st/2nd August 2009We arrived and setup camp between the showers, a sign of things to come. The venue was ideal with hot showers, huge 24hour food hall, good toilets and most importantly a brilliant trail course that was both fun and testing.
For the 2pm mass start Mark Sands was our first runner and led the first lap, Dave Tilley ran the second lap in light rain and then it was my turn and the rain came big time! By the end of my lap we were running on pure mud and as it was only 3:30pm there was a long time ahead was worrying.
As night time came our times slowed as we were sliding about far too much despite the wonderful people from Adidas lending everyone various grippy trail shoes. I missed out on Swoops which were doing very well in the filth.
My 3rd lap was at midnight and with my monster 3w CREE torch this was no problem at all. It was my most enjoyable lap and I overtook about 12 runners who must have thought I was elite (or something scary) as they kept getting out of the way.
My 4th lap was about 4am and started in full darkness soon to be followed by the wonderful sight of the sun coming up and I finished in full daylight. It takes your mind off the hard work when you have a course and views like this.
We were in 3rd place by this time as we had stuck to our team plan and sent everyone out in order. It was not just that we wanted to spread the pain ,but if we were going to win anything we had to do it in our own way with all team members working together 100%.
Our mixed team of 5 stuck to a running order so 3 members ran 6 laps with the other two doing 5 laps managing 28 laps overall.
As this was evenly spaced there was time for a shower and rest between laps. You really needed a shower as the course was pure mud in many places due to heavy rain early on (mainly on the 3rd leg when I was running).
My 6th and last lap was the final run and I managed to take 5 minutes off my previous lap as the trails dried.
The course is a very well designed trail course by someone who clearly knows what they are doing. It takes in several woods, tracks, trails, hills, grass and oh yes Mud. If it had been dry we would have completed more than the 28 laps but the conditions did not detract from the fun and in some strange ways they added to it.
Will we be back next year? Of course we will! There will be several teams from our club there and I can't wait for it.
<i>The Sleaford Runners team finished 3rd in the Team of 5 category, one lap behind the winners. (Full results are at http://www.provelosupportuk.co.uk/thunder_run_24.html ). Their adventure racing team are Toonie Express and they are on of the teams entered into our Abu Dhabi competition. You can read all about them on their SleepMonsters team site.</.i>
