I picked up two fellow University students Pete Robinson and Seb Lloyd on Sunday 19th Feb morning and drove out to Newnham Park for this year’s edition of the Stinger.
If you are unaware of what the Stinger is, it’s an off road duathlon that consists of a 5km cross country run, 20km cross country cycle and a 3km hellish fell run.
Sounds lovely right?! That’s why I can never work out why it is always a sell out!
Maybe it encourages runner types to have a go at race which incorporates the bike where they won’t be completely down the pan, maybe it’s the challenge of a tough race where you can be proud of yourself for finishing or maybe people just enter for the sheer enjoyment of romping around the beautiful Newnham Park without the risk of getting shot at!
We arrived a little late (my fault) and soon got ourselves together with the bikes and shoes strategically placed in the transition zone ready for the a jelly-legged change over.
I would like to take moment to thank fellow team mate Harry Smith for lending me his bottle cage as I had stupidly forgotten to equip mine and left it at home (I’m blaming it on being the first race of the season).
I took my place on the start line with 100 others and tried to find some reasoning behind the impending hell I was surely to enter; usually I have a few pre race butterflies but on this day I was just asking myself what on earth I was doing here. I am by no measure a runner, I did cross country at primary school because let’s face it, everyone did! I used to have a yearly 1500m outing during secondary school because nobody else wanted to do it. The only running I had done since then was the previous year’s Stinger when I ran for Harry Smith as I had a broken thumb.
The "Easy" Run
Armed with less preparation than last year, the whistle went, Martin exploded away on the quad and I started putting one leg in front of the other. I started at the front because I thought to myself that even though I would be over taken by every man and quite possibly a dog I will at least finish the run quicker than if I started at the back.
The run consisted of one bike lap which took in some of the usual Newnham features; up the cottage return, around bluebell woods, through the bomb holes and down the field to start/finish area.
I didn’t lose too many places on the first fire road before starting to ascend cottage return and to my surprise I started to actually pick up a few places! I overtook team mate Gary Andrews and shortly after overtook also team mate Maddie Horton as well as a few others.
However, my joy was short lived as on the first fire road Gary came back past me and I have the feeling I was holding people up in the next single track section as about 6 people came past me on the next fire road section including young Certini – Fully Sussed whippet Harry Forshaw. I didn’t lose any more places after this though and reached transition buoyed with a very good run but lost about two minutes on most others as I tried to stay on my jelly legs whilst changing shoes and donning a helmet.
The Bike
I jumped on my bike out of transition and put the hammer down as riding a bike is what I specialise in!! Within a lap I caught up and passed Gary and Harry and earlier on in the seconds lap I had overtaken Maddie.
I continued to blast my way around the bike laps and came into transition in 6th place with my sister Juliet Long getting quite excited next to me in transition offering to tie my shoes laces for me. I declined her offer and started the run along as I had nobody close in front or behind.
The Extreme Run
The first few hundred metres of the run were nice and flat but I knew (from experience and knowing the Hortons) that it was all about to change.
Sure enough I was pointed through a river by Lisa and Rosie Andrews which I almost belly flopped into courtesy of a stumble just before it. Up the other side was a monumentally steep. My legs which up until this point had been fairly fresh died within 10 feet of vertical ascension. I ended up crawling up bits of it as my thighs screamed hell Mary. I even briefly considered rolling back down again but the sight of Duncan Baldie at the top spurred? me on and he pointed me in the right direction which was first off flat, allowing my muscles to get some oxygen back into them (or what little there is at that altitude)
The next section of the run was off camber and through uncharted woodland, that Columbus would be proud to discover. With nothing more than a few bits of course tape tied onto tree branches to aim at, I soon discovered why Columbus was nowhere in sight as my leg went out knee deep into a bog! I carried on navigating my way through the deadly bogs (they eat shoes you know!) and rivers.
I finally came to some fire road, only to be pointed up another monstrous bank! By this point my legs were completely shot and I pretty much walked up it with the occasional burst as I gave everything just in case there was someone closing fast behind me. I finally reached the top of the bank and mercifully looked down to see that there was nobody in sight!!
The next section of the run was along the ridge of the bank which was littered with tyres, leaves and branches. I am amazed that the Horton’s didn’t fashion a Marines style tyre run for us to go through!
The ridge soon turned extremely off camber and I started to lose my left foot as it slipped away every 5 steps or so. After 5 minutes of this I reached a final steep bank which praise Vishnu was going down! It was then only a short distance along a fire road to the finish!
I was so pleased to come in to the finish without relinquishing any places on the final run and took my free mug from Martyn and went to get my duly deserved free cup of tea
Thoughts on the Course
I thought the course was good but to be honest you can blindly throw three darts at a map of Newnham Park, join them up and you will have a good course! That’s how great the venue is.
I would have preferred to have gone down the cottage return instead of slogging up it but I guess it means we’ll go down it at the SW champs (hint, hint). The benefit of going up the cottage return was being that we had to go through the river single-track the other way to usual which I think flows better.
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