Whilst many people were going to church for Remembrance Sunday, I ventured with over 1000 others to Chipping Sodbury High School for the start of the 10th Sodbury Slog. The Sodbury Slog has been voted as the second and fourth best race in the UK over the past few years, I decided to enter a few months back just as a fun race to end the year with. But due to missing Oldbury 10 and the Great South Run the Slog ended up being a key race for me.
You hear lots of wives tales about certain races the Slog being one, the photos on the website back these tales up. I wasn’t sure on exactly what to expect. I knew that the Slog is run every year on Remembrence Day and thus the races start a few minutes past 11 so that the 2 minute silence can be honoured, and a am pleased to say that all that were at the school for the start honoured the 2 minutes in perfect silence.
The 1st mile takes you down Sodbury high street, and strangely I was leading, I was expecting a few to go out a lot quicker (but that was from looking at previous years results). I took the race onto the start of the off road, some of the ditches the route took you through were an appitiser for what has ahead, a long ascent at the two mile mark took some energy out of my legs, it was then the the route took you through some boggy, wet and very cold ditches, this was a shock to my legs and did take me at least half a mile to feel back to normal afterwards by which point I was over taken by 2 guys.
The off road was starting to take a lot out of my legs by this time and I was slowly being caught by the guy in fourth place, as the route took us round the outskirts of various fields he passed me, I was starting to think it was the start of the slow move backwards through the field, but he didn’t seem to make any head way and for once I was able to follow someone, which did help.
By the time we reached the major ascent of the race, he started to slow and I managed to gradually make up the 5m or so he had on me by the time we reached the top I managed to pass him again. The course then took us back onto the hard stuff (tarmac) I found my road legs and realised that I could stretch out with no reply, I didn’t make my move then as I knew there was still quite a bit of offroad to be done, so we reached what must be the spectacle of the Slog for the spectators - a 10m run through a ditch that has steep sides and a good foot of soft mud and water at the bottom, luckily for me I am 6ft6 so it only came up to below my knees. The last mile was on the road so I used my road legs again and maanaged to keep a 2 - 3 second gap all the way to the end, and finished in 3rd place. Sodbury Slog 2009 results.
I have to admit that this is probably one of my best results, yes I know that you don’t get the major athletes competing but considering, I only normally do road running, I haver not done any specific offraod training and it has only been a month since I started back from my chest infection, I feel very proud of my acheivements, and hope that the efforts used will stand my endurance in good stead for future races.
If you get the chance I do strongly suggest you enter this race. Bitton run a good show for this one, there is a certain sense of comraderey between all the runners and the support is excellent, the only problem is that the back runners have to run the all the churned up ground and bogs so as more finishers start to come through, the more muddy they are.
Update on Friday, 13 November, 2009 by
Phil
My efforts on Sunday haven’t gone on noticed with a number 3 joint performance of the week from Mike Down see attached link http://www.bristolandwestac.org/2009/11/performances-of-week_12.html
