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10 19th, 2008| 
From The Gingerwizard….
Hi folks,Thought I’d do a short write up on the Muggles race last weekend. It was an excellantly organised race, over a tough hilly course with beautiful scenery, and even the weather was good.
I was enetered in the 10.5 mile “Mimsy” Muggle, and we started a couple of minutes after the Major mugglers (15.5 miles) went off. Due to a bad year with illness I have had many months off training this year, and have only been getting back into things for a few weeks. Any running I’ve done since my illness has been on road, and flat, so I had no idea how I’d get on. The first mile or so seemed to have a lot of downhill in them, and this probably contributed to me heading off way too fast, which is an old problem of mine that I thought I’d got over. I even managed to overtake some of the people racing the 15 mile event, despite them heading off some time before our race. When we got to the first couple of hills, I soon realised my mistake, as I’d started to blow a little. My lungs still aren’t back to where they were before the illness so I still find breathing hard difficult sometimes. I slowed my pace slightly, and found a more comfortable pace. About half way through there is a really long steep uphill, on a concrete farm track, I started off trying to run this, but breathing was getting difficult, so decided it would be better to power walk it instead. This turned out to be a good move, as I was actually gaining slightly on a guy who was quite a way ahead, who was trying to run it. Not long after the top of this hill we came to the first drinks station which was very welcome, as I’d got quite hot, just a shame they didn’t have a nice cold pint of cider!! The rest of the run was undulating, with the odd gate thrown in and a few styles. One of the bits I found hardest was running along the side of a valley, which was hard as I’m not used to running along the side of a hill, with my feet landing at an angle. After what seemed an eternity, I reached a style and the marshall said she had been told it was about a mile to the finish. This was obviously one of those motivational tricks as it took me 16 minutes from there to get to the finish. At the bottom of the last hill I had a quick cheer from Philippa who asked if i was enjoying it, which I was, but still decided to power walk the hill, as my breathing was still a bit iffy. Through the woods, and made my way to a track, and felt very relieved when the finish line came into view. Managed to put on a showy effort into the line and then had a chat with a couple of other finishers over a few cups of water at the finish line.
Overall I think I’m pretty pleased with my effort, although if I had paced the start better I do wonder what difference that would have made. Finished in 1.38 which gives me a bench mark for next year.
Thanks to Philippa and all the others involved in organising this first running of the Muggles, I’m sure it will grow into a very successful race.
I’d highly recommend this race to anyone, and with the three distances it has something to suit most runners.
Perhaps next year, we could make a bit of a club event of it, we had five entrants this year, but it would be nice to see more next year.
Oh and thanks to Ed for the pics, saw him a couple of times on his mountain bike, which also spurred me on.Fantastically well done to our younsters (some fine Ironmen in the making) for doing the very Hilly Muggles MT races. And especially to Alex and Neil who started a good 4 mins behind everyone else but Neil (who’s only 17) did a tremendous run on the 15.9 mile course and Alex (who’s only 16) came 12th in the shorter run! And a bit of a close competition in the 10.9 mile race with all our 3 finishing very close.
Well done to all:
Minor Muggle (5.5 miles winner 38.11)
12th Alex McKay 57.05
Mimsy Muggles (10.9miles winner 1.17.21)
24th Derek Johnson 1.38.41
25th Tom Weaver 1.41.30
27th Tim Gomez 1.41.34
Major Muggle (15.9 miles winner 1.55.12)
27th Neil Fillevy 2.36.22
(thanks to Ed for the photos)
