Staffs Knot 5
12th August 2009

Race Report:

I fancied having a go at the Staffs Knot 5 as I enjoy mutli-terrain courses and had not participated in it before.

The instructions for the day stated that we needed to follow the brown signs to get to the Visitor Centre. That was easy enough but when I parked up everyone else was preparing their mountain bikes and there did not appear to be one other runner in sight. Having asked someone who worked there I was redirected to another Visitor Centre about a mile down the road.

When I approached I had more than an hour and a half before the race was to start (I must have gone a bit faster than anticipated on the motorways). There were already hundreds of cars parked up as the Fun Run for the children was taking place before the main race.

If you can imagine Glastonbury without the music but will steep hills you will understand what the course was like. It certainly didn’t help by having heavy rain.

I think that there were about 500 runners taking part so the start was packed. The mistake that I made this time was to start at the back as it took me about 10 minutes to get past anyone. It was very difficult to overtake in other parts of the course as some places were extremely narrow due to overgrown bushes etc.

I enjoyed the mixed terrain except the mud. As the sky was so dark I struggled to see what I was actually running in at times. We had to watch out for running deer and the odd fisherman casting his line (I don’t mean he was actually odd!) However, the marshals were friendly enough, cheering us on. I got slightly flattened by another runner who couldn’t slow down on a hill but I was o.k. to carry on despite a couple of scratches, a cut and a few bruises that I am sure will appear soon (but as my ‘bad’ knee is now a bit grumpy I will have to give this weekend’s races a miss).

There were no water stations en route but having so much rain water I doubt any runner would have needed to stop for a drink, I certainly didn't. Everyone received a goody bag consisting of a bottle of water, Lucozade Sport, Lucozade gel and a race hat.

There were no changing areas and the toilets were dire but I didn’t fancy driving back home in the wet and muddy clothes. Fortunately my car steams up quite quickly so I was able to make a full change without anyone from the outside noticing!

All in all it was a challenging but fun course with horrible weather. I will be back there again next year (should the weather be good) to see if I can do any better.

Katarina

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