Indian Queens Half Marathon

Sunday 7th August 2011

First off, my apologies that this isn’t a completed report, but I’m not here! Not being in Cornwall today was a real shame for me because I was very much looking forward to running this race. Still, I can console myself with the two great reports below – it sounds like it was a tough course and that being away from home might not have been such a bad thing after all…

Stephie

Rob Cockings, TRC's head coach

Hana Peruses the Form

The forecast was for heavy showers, so with a heavy heart I left Truro with Julie not really looking forward to today’s little jog around the Goss Moor.

Last year I ran the whole way with my spectacles in my hand, due to heavy mizzle, so the views were not enjoyed, but in some ways, lack of sight made any incline actually not too bad. Maybe I should adopt this strategy for all my races, glasses off, more speed! Maybe not! Sorry I’m going off at a tangent.

We arrived with plenty of time, which was necessary, as somehow, Julie’s entry via TRC had been missed, and she had no race number issued, so no place on the start line. Ahhhhhhh! At this point it was with many thanks to Diane, who had pulled out due to lack of training (her words) the day was saved. I’m not actually sure if Julie was that pleased with having a place, as to be honest, I think she was quite looking forward to spectating. Tough, she was in for the hard slog that was before us. If I was going to go through torture, so was she.

Numbers pinned on, queue to Porta Loo’s joined, then it was off to the start line with the other 700 odd runners of all shapes and sizes. I thought it had been limited to 500, but no, it had grown considerably. The start line was a bit of a tight squeeze, we were on the pavement not the road, as there was no room, but hey ho, it was all tarmac and we were facing the right direction. Plus the sun was shining and NO rain was falling out of the sky.

A quick talk by the race starter with a croaky voice and we were off. This was tricky due to so many legs and feet that needed to be avoided to stop falling flat on ones face. I did not want to embarrass myself as somewhere in the sea of runners, was a representative of Runner World Magazine, and who would want to be featured in the magazine as the person to fall at the first hurdle.

Down the road we all ran, a sharp left turn and I was still on my feet, having weaved around numerous runners to find some space in which to run more freely and settle into some sort of pace. Mile one and I had covered that in 7.5 mins.

Having recently read an article on running styles in the aforementioned magazine, I decided today’s pain distraction would be seeing how many styles I could spot in the runners around me. It didn’t take very long before the first style appeared……..”The Octopus”. Yes the Octopus. They have arms that flail around, and the ones I saw definitely favoured the left arm, which would do a little sort of swirl as if waving a wand. At mile 4, the “Shuffler” approached from my rear. You could hear the feet dragging along the gravel path, and after a minute or so, this started to really annoy me, to the extent that if he didn’t overtake me, I would have to tell him to pick his wretched feet up, before I killed him…….female hormones kicking in!

One type the magazine didn’t mention was the lobster…….he passed by at mile 6, shoulders having been over exposed to recent sunshine, without sun screen. Oh and there was the “Steam train” again not featured, but this involves two runners running in single file, one behind the other, as a twosome, with arms pumping just like the pistons on a steam train. This steam train though had a serious problem, loss of water. The female runner at the rear was wearing lovely green silk shorts, but I think she missed the queue for the Porta loo’s……I leave the rest to your imagination. All the “high kickers” were well ahead and so where do I fit into all of this…..I’m the one with a short stride, arms held too high, with fists clenched too tight, carrying a security hanky.

The road section didn’t last too long, before we headed onto the trail and gravel and sludge took over from tarmac, along with some large puddles. This then involved a little bit of neat foot work, to stop the trainers getting too messy. On one Bend in the track, there was a nice brass band playing for us and as mile 6 approached I saw Two Alligators in the swamp, a Tiger and a Bear. This could only mean one thing, I was now approaching a watering hole. No wildebeest though!

My Navaho tracking skills sprung into action at this point. I studied the path ahead…….cows had passed, but not in the last hour or so, therefore it was safe to continue!

I said my usual “No thank you”, to the water and at mile 7, I checked my watch to see I had covered 7 miles in 57 minutes. Why can’t I do this in a 7 mile race????????

The remainder of the race was spent trying to tell myself that I really didn’t want to give up. A wonderful member of Truro squash club called Andrew Murgatroyd, who had died recently, sprung to my mind, and I thought of how if he had still been alive today, he would have chastised me for having such negative thoughts. It was therefore time to give myself a kick up the rear end, and just battle on. After all, I was still alive and fit enough to attempt to run this race, so giving up was not an option.

Mile 9 arrived, followed by 10 and 11, then it was that final slog up what I know is a gentle incline to the finish, but it felt a lot steeper today. Isobel was there having already finished the race, I might add, cheering me on, then another TRC friendly face shouted, “You’re on target for a 1:50”. I was just pleased to see the finish line and on crossing it, I forgot to stop my cheap “Casio” watch (still waiting for the birthday “Garmin” from husband) so I can’t tell you for sure, what my actual time was. I do think it was slightly slower than last year, which is depressing, and greater than 1:50, but I would like to add a few excuses at this point.

• It was hotter than last year.
• There was more wind resistance than last year.
• I could see where I was going
• and my 40 mile tortuous bike ride on Monday , had made my legs fill with lead weights.

(My time was in fact 1:52:42  over 2 minutes slower than last year….grrrrrrrrr!)

So, would I run this race again………today’s answer is No, next year It could be different.

• No showers to freshen up in, but plenty of toilets, which were clean so not bad to use.
• Parking…I parked down the road in a small housing estate and there seemed to be parking for all in the village.
• No Goodie bag or T-Shirt. Sadly yet another medal to stick on the kitchen pin board…anymore and the board may come off the wall. Exactly what are you supposed to do with these medals?
• A Banana, which was so under ripe I couldn’t even peel it and a bottle of energy drink. Thank goodness for the catering van and a large cup of tea made less wet by my emergency “Snickers bar”.

Hana

A Tiring one for Tony

A summing up of the Indian Queens Half? Sure, in two words: totally knackered. And two more words: blistered toes. It was a clear, sunny, but not overly hot, morning with a brisk breeze blowing so conditions seemed fairly good. But appearances can be deceptive as most of the 600-plus competitors discovered. There was much talk at the finish among all runners about recording times slower than they expected and of finding the conditions fairly tough. The sun had a bit of a kick on it over the long open stretches and the wind proved to be something to battle with, especially over that seemingly endless long slog over the final mile (was it really only a mile?).

My own race started well with a steady 6.30 pace that resulted in going through the four mile mark in a time three minutes faster than my result for the recent 4-mile Turkey Trot at Trickey’s. Isobel went past me at a nice steady pace before the first mile; then came coach Rob, and Nigel was also somewhere up front. Dave started to go past and over the next few miles we changed places several times (he surged ahead on the hills) until eventually I seemed to lose my shadow.

Much of the course is off road on quite level trails through the moorland but this is offset by two or three long and exposed inclines after the halfway mark that quickly applied the brakes to what had until then been a 7.15 pace. By about 10 miles the legs were asking to stop – they pleaded to be back home on the couch watching telly. But I told them we had to finish and there was last year’s time to beat. Which was a great incentive until that final mile when the legs won and started doing short intervals of walking instead of running. So a 6.30 start ended in something like a 9-minute plus and an overall time of 1.40.27, which was 27 seconds slower than last year.

Finishing line post-mortems agreed it had been a bit of a toughie but, of course, extremely satisfying to have been there and done that. Overall, great organisation, nice big clunky medals and a bar dispensing a much needed Guinness.

And thanks to all the TRC non-runners (Ann Maskell and Co) who cycled  around the course to cheer us on.

Apologies for not giving a more detailed report of the entire TRC contingent but no doubt there is a link somewhere to the results.  And now for the Truro half. (18th September.)

By the way, as the winner of the M70 category, Norris Kingdom pointed out that although I may have been the only entry in the M75 category I did also beat all those in the M70 and M65 groups and all but two in the M60s.

Tony

The Indian Queens Album

Thanks to Tony for the photos.

Results

Indian Queens half marathon 2011 – full results .doc file