Round Ripon 35 Mile Ultra
Somewhat hilly & very hot!
7:29:21 - 17th/50
Dear Supporters,
With just 87 shopping days left till Christmas (despite what the rising mercury would have us believe), it’s time for another update…
Just for a change I thought I’d try a shorter run to get the month going. So I entered the Spitfire 20 - partly because of the evocative sounding name, more though that it took in two laps of Dunsfold Aerodrome - better known these days as the home of Top Gear!
A mere 20 miler which as well as the famous race track and its montage of antique aircraft took in some of Surrey’s wonderful countryside.
My first lap was just a touch slower than the Stig might have accomplished at about 1 hour 20 min, and my second was more pedestrian still - finishing in treacherous conditions which my running slicks were ill equipped to handle (1:30 Wet).
Some say he’s become a touch conceited since he left his dump…
Nevertheless I was pleased with my overall time of 2:49:30 (124th).
Sadly since running the Spitfire 20 I have learned that according to Collins - the dictionaires - the word ‘aerodrome’ is now outdated and as such no longer worthy of a place in their lexicon. So they’ve purged it from their now frankly inadequate reference book! A whole bunch of other words have also been consigned to the scrap heap which make it very difficult to string a simple sentence together. I feel though that their abstergent method will serve only to embrangle. Whilst we may need to exuviate certain words, their vilipend and niddering approach shows a calignosity which leaves an olid taste! I’m sure you’ll agree! Its true additions have been made, so I can now legitimately talk about something (or someone) being ‘simples’ - mainly though the people that use the word in the first place!
Me and my running partner for the day - Ellie (who is completing a mile in honour of every UK serviceman / woman killed in Afghanistan - raising money for SSAFA) …
Still with me…!? Back then to the serious distances and the 32 mile Honeystreet Ultra. Just 10 of us set out across Wiltshire armed only with an A4 laminated map. The pre-race instructions had recommended the purchase of a comprehensive OS map - but where’s the fun in that!!
The limited cartography did make navigation a touch more challenging than it perhaps ought to have been - which resulted in me completing an extra 10k on top of the official race distance! I even had to resort to asking random people for directions! The ignominy of it! The scale of my navigational misdemeanours was highlighted when I asked a couple of cyclists just where I was - pointing in hope at my map - to be informed that I was a clear couple of inches off the map altogether!
Whilst eventually finding my way to the correct route, it sadly wasn’t my only false move of the day!
The final 10 miles was a long and painful slog meandering as I did in the general direction of the finish!
I decided against keeping the perm…!
Cold, tired and a touch dejected, eventually, just like a homing pigeon to his loft; I made it back to the pub from where I’d started! It was nearly 8 hours later mind and with only 1 other person following me back I finished a very distant 8th=!
This weekend sees me take on the Yorkshire fells with 35 miles around Ripon – once more with laminated map in hand – just to be on the safe side I may also take a compass (& my sat nav)!
Another 3 UK servicemen have sadly paid with their lives since my last update, as well as several more wounded in action. Their sacrifice is one we must not lose sight of.
As always please forward this note to anyone else who may be interested – many thanks!
Best wishes,
Richard
Richard Kell
Midas Marathon
OR TEXT KELL99 (£10, £5, £3, £2, or £1) to 70070 - Your text is free! Phone: 07901 000729 or 01462 670202
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Dear Supporters,
August is traditionally as quiet as the Arsenal team bus following a trip to Old Trafford. There’s a dearth of marathons with very few organised events. I suppose it has something to do with a lack of appetite to run during (supposedly) the hottest month of the year, or perhaps the nation’s athletes are otherwise distracted by Celebrity Big Brother, but whatever the reason I had no runs to look forward to. So instead I upped the intensity of my training regime - a day at Lords to work on my ‘stamina’, a day at Newbury races to focus on my ‘judgement’ and an afternoon watching beach volleyball on the Mall to lift my spirits! Feeling a little bored, and on one of the few Saturdays that the sun decided to play ball, I thought it would be nice to go to the beach, and in my desire to reduce my carbon footprint I thought I’d run there. The only problem - I don’t exactly live on the coast. Not wishing to let technicalities like that get in the way, I plotted a route to Southend-on-Sea - some 61 odd miles from my frontdoor and set off!
I was regretting giving my camerman the morning off …
I guess no one’s ever really thought about running from Letchworth to Southend before - strange as it seems - consequentially there’s a dearth of footpaths along the route - so once again I enjoyed an elongated game of chicken with an assortment of cars, lorries and agricultural vehicles. The fact that I’m writing this proves that I remained intact (unless this is what they mean by a ghost writer!)
Someone’s forgotten to mention to the 2012 organisers that there aren’t actually any mountains in Essex …
The route took me out of Hertfordshire and on into Essex, through some of the county’s most scenic landscapes….rolling countryside, thatched cottages and roadkill everywhere! The anti-foxhunting brigade would be disconsolate to see what’s happening to Foxy Loxy - maybe they’ll want us to ban cars next!
They have some very specific roadsigns in Essex. Not sure who Ms. Roding is, but clearly she drives a little too quickly …
Other than getting a little confused in Chelmsford town centre, I managed the whole journey without getting the least bit lost…the route I’d chosen took me too close for comfort to the shopping area - my navigational instinct though is well honed and automatically redirected me in the opposite direction - it added about a mile to the trip, but avoided a near altercation with shopping!
Mercifully by the time I hit Southend High Street the shops had closed for the day!
Southend High Street - a sale on at the Heart Foundation… Half price hearts?!
I reached the Southend sea front some 12 hours 51 minutes after my departure. There was plenty of space left on the beach, but sadly it was dark - or at least it would have been without the headlights from the souped-up rust buckets racing up and down the seafront!
The chips didn’t seem such a great idea 20 mins later as I was looping-the-loop…
So another run in the bag, next up an eminently more sensible 32 miler - the rather pleasant sounding Honeystreet Ultra! If anyone has any ideas for any other running challenges (the more abstract the better) in the next few months, then please let me know!
In the past 5 years a total of 1,746 UK personnel have been wounded in action, and in total there have now been 379 deaths since the Afghan campaign began. And whilst Britain’s feral youth were rampaging through our streets during August, our brave troops continued to demonstrate the reason why we can still call ourselves Great Britain - including Lieutenant Daniel John Clack, 1st Battalion The Rifles and Marine James Robert Wright, from Juliet Company, 42 Commando Royal Marines who sadly both made the ultimate sacrifice. We still have 10,000 troops serving in Afghanistan - let’s remember what a fantastic job they continue to do in the service of our country
If you know anyone else who may wish to support – please forward this note – many thanks!
Best wishes,
Richard
Richard Kell
Midas Marathon
Donate: http://www.justgiving.com/MidasMarathon
OR TEXT KELL99 (£10, £5, £3, £2, or £1) to 70070 - Your text is free! Phone: 07901 000729 or 01462 670202
E-mail: Richard@Midasmarathon.com
Web: www.MidasMarathon.com
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Letchworth to Southend at Sea (pt 2) - A day on the beach! 61 miles - 12hours 51m - 6th August 2011
Letchworth to Southend at Sea - A day on the beach! 61 miles - 12hours 51m - 6th August 2011
Dear Supporters,
It’s been a while since my last update….sadly I fell into a coma whilst watching the 10o/c news a few weeks ago…the Euro’s on the brink of implosion (even though the political motivated dreamers who brought it into being still haven’t accepted that the whole scheme is engineered on Bob the Builder economics); Just about anyone involved in the newspaper industry from the paperboy up is an unprincipled crook (hasn’t Murdoch aged badly since his A-team days), and the Beckhams have produced another ridiculously named baby. So that’s the gist of the last 2 months news - a real groundhog experience…I’m just glad I slept through most of it!
So I’ve tried to keep myself distracted from the tedious daily updates of a bit more phone hacking by doing something different…well OK, a little more running actually. After a 2 week sunshine layoff it was time to dig out the running gear for a hike around Cambridgeshire. With hindsight I’d venture to suggest that a fortnight of all-inclusive excesses probably wasn’t the ideal preparation for a 46 mile run the weekend I got home. But after a month’s inactivity it’s just what I had in store. The Pathfinder March has been designed more as a long distance walk (but that involved a 04:00 start which seems a touch uncivilised) so a handful of us took it on as a run. The route took in the 4 bases / former bases previously occupied by the Pathfinder Force during WW2. Setting out from RAF Wyton, the circuit took us to the sites of former bases at Gravely, Oakington, and Warboys. Alas the latter three bases that survived the onslaught of the Luftwaffe have since succumbed to the ravishes of defence cutbacks… though they’re now doing a fine job of growing wheat & potatoes (leading the fight against global famine…or fuelling an obesity crisis, I really can’t be sure)! The Pathfinder Force was formed of a formidable array of squadrons - Halifaxes, Lancasters, Stirlings, Wellingtons, and Mosquitos (an effective weapon against the Hun …apparently despite their liberal deployment of deet)! Today all that’s left is a decaying Canberra parked at the front gate…whilst the base hosts the Cambridge University Air Squadron (channelling a few angsty students into a frontline defence capability I suppose gives them an outlet for all their tuition fees anger)! Together with my running buddy Dan we toiled on what was a particularly warm late-June day. The distance took us a little over nine and a half hours (our sense of achievement more in navigating the entire route without getting lost than the time itself)!
Thinking about it, I’d have finished so much faster but for the ‘research’ en route …
Just a week later and it was time to head North to take on Scotland! I’d entered something called the Kinlochleven Ultra - racing an international field through 40 miles of some of Scotland’s most stunning scenery. That also meant conquering a mountain or two along the way. To be honest there was only one real mountain…. But then I was required to conquer it twice! Fortunately my 9 Bar stockpile was made for such challenges!
As you can see the mountain was bigger even than Everest…
Climbing on all fours up a cliff face didn’t help my eventual race time (7:53), but I was delighted with my final position, finishing 2nd overall and the top British runner…& top male ‘athlete’! Cynics might point to the fact that I also finished 2nd last… And was beaten by a woman…not that there’s any disgrace in that I should add…before anyone goes burning a hole in their husband’s shirt!
So it wasn’t the biggest field in the world, but a podium finish all the same!
If anyone’s interested, there’s a selection of photos, together with a load of Gavin & Stacey pictures & videos at www.midasmarathon.tumblr.com
Help for Heroes recently reached the extraordinary milestone of £100 Million since it was launched just 4 years ago. Every single penny of that huge sum has already been spent, or is allocated to provide practical, direct support to our wounded. Reaching £100m is a major milestone; but it’s a marker on a very long road. The mission is far from accomplished. Millions more is required to build a comprehensive support system that will provide the care and opportunities that our young men and women need. They are young today, but the 22 year old who has stepped on an IED will be an old man one day. We need to ensure that he is still being supported even then. The war may end but he will not have peace. Another £46m is required to meet the costs of planned projects and support. Our blokes need the very best. Our job is not done until they get it….
If you know anyone else who may wish to support – please forward this note – thank you.
& it’s now possible to donate by text - just text KELL99 to 70070 (followed by either £10, £5, £3, £2 or £1)!
Best wishes,
Richard
Richard Kell
Midas Marathon
Donate: http://www.justgiving.com/MidasMarathon
OR TEXT KELL99 (£10, £5, £3, £2, or £1) to 70070 - Your text is free! Phone: 07901 000729 or 01462 670202
E-mail: Richard@Midasmarathon.com
Web: www.MidasMarathon.com
Facebook: http://apps.facebook.com/causes/335321/24353342?m=71bb3202
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Tumbler (Photos & News): http://midasmarathon.tumblr.com/
Kinlochleven Ultra (2 of 2) - 2nd July 2011 - 40 mile out & back in The Scottish Highlands
2nd placed overall & top Brit finisher!
Gavin & Stacey marathon - Day 4 - Old Severn crossing….halfway between England & Wales
Gavin & Stacey marathon - start of day 4, Bristol
Gavin & Stacey marathon - Day 3 - Swindon
