SIR TITUS TROT MARATHON & WILMOT WANDER 32 MILE ULTRA

28^th & 29^th January 2017

What a weekend! The “Sir Titus Trot” marathon started at Saltaire on Saturday at 9:30am not too bad I thought until I got there and it started raining. Not too badly but it doesn’t fill you with enthusiasm knowing that the canal towpath was water-logged to begin with, without adding to it!

The route is straight forward enough ; 3 miles out towards Esholt 3 miles back trying to avoid as many deep puddles as you can, not so easy in road shoes which aren’t waterproof.

So back past the start line and on towards Steeton and Silsden with a hill at the side of “the five locks” the surface was the usual mix of hardcore and muddy patches with some lovely scenery until mile 14 when the canal towpath just stops! Nothing, no ‘hardcore’ no gravel, just grass and not flat either but grass on a slope, a MUDDY SLOPE! I lost count of the times I had to grab hold of the drystone wall to stop myself sliding into the canal! I’m not kidding, try that section sometime, get off the train at keighley and instead of running back to Leeds, run the other way.

So we had to reach the turn-round which was a quarter mile too far along the canal, again this doesn’t sound much reading but in reality it means an extra half mile of mud likely to send you into the canal,totalling 4.8 miles of slipping and sliding, not a good day out.

Unfortunately on these occasions my “Tourettes” come to the fore! I was not a happy bunny. The route home to the finish was uneventful once I got back onto some kind of surface and I finished in 4hrs 55mins. Still it’s not all about numbers is it? Today was about staying upright and hey I only fell once and bizarrely the “Tourettes” stopped once I started running on an actual towpath!

 

I had booked a train to Derby at 15:42 loads of time to get something to eat in Saltaire. No chance! Nowhere open, thanks! It’s not like I’d just burnt 3000 calories and needed to replace them. Suppose I’ll just have to wait then.

Got into Derby and straight into a taxi and on to the B&B. What a fantastic B&B, a Victorian Terrace in a quiet street but the décor inside was amazing! I would have paid a lot more than £31. Might have made a bit of a mess in the bathroom (which I cleaned up!!) with the amount of mud on my legs. Had a shower and straight out for a Thai Chicken Curry and Rice plus Garlic Chapatti bread at the local pub, do I know how to live or what? I was in bed by 8:30 dead to the world 2 mins later.

My set off time was 8:32 am from the 27^th Derby scout hall Chadderson. Got there at 7:45 and bumped into an old friend, Simon Illingworth with whom I’ve run 21 Marathons, well I say run, he and I have been on the start line and then that’s it after the 1^st mile he’s gone. Anyway he said why don’t you ask them to bump your start time to 8:02 and come with us? His 2 friends were just as fast if not faster than Simon, however they knew the course having done it several times each. So even though I had the route maps ( 5 pages) and the route description I tried my best to keep up, I managed it too up until mile 12 and then Simon politely said I was holding him up and left me with other runners. I don’t hold any grudge for him doing so as he was spot on and I was feeling a little guilty at holding him and the others up.

The ‘other runners’ were Sutton & Ashfield Harriers who had set off at 7am and were running this as one of their social events! “Our lot just go to the pub for a social event”, I said. So Richard if we get a lot of enquiries about membership you know where they’ve come from.

True to form at the time I met up with this lot my energy levels picked up and I left them! I know rude right? It’s the competitive streak in me not my lack of manners, honest.

Oh, did I tell you this route is hilly? No? well it is, but then it’s Derbyshire. Before I forget just as I was getting into my map reading and route following skills it started to get foggy! Brilliant, now not only don’t I know where I’m going I can’t bloody see where I’m going either!

I was doing well up until mile 18 and then disaster I managed to lose my shoe!! The depth of the mud was such that I was sinking ankle deep until finally I was hopping backwards trying to pull my left shoe out of the mud and not fall over…did it! Shoe felt a little clammy afterwards though.

About 5 miles after this the route goes along the canal and yes you guessed it…No towpath, for 5 miles! Fortunately the mud wasn’t as bad along this bit and I could actually stay upright, result! However my energy levels were sinking fast and my right knee was hurting despite the ibuprofen gel that I covered it with that morning.

I’d eaten 2 pain au chocolates and 2 gels by this point and had half a cup of tea at each checkpoint but I was fading and just hanging on.

The last few miles I could hardly run and struggled to finish in 7hrs 15mins.

Mind you going wrong 4 times and losing my shoe didn’t help with the time! All in all I think I would do this again, but I don’t think I’d do a marathon the day before.

Still that’s #112 ticked off. Two weeks rest until the next one now, can’t wait!

 

Phil Hammond.