Doynton Race Report - by Ian Mussell

IT AIN’T HALF HARD MUM - January 23, 2019

Lets get this out of the way first, Half marathon is a bloody stupid distance for a race. Too far to go hard and not far enough to go easy, it’s a recipe with the inevitable outcome of inordinate amounts of pain, both during the race and also for days afterwards as your body attempts to cope with the fact you spent far too long trying to run quickly. This race is billed as hard, hilly and muddy which are 3 little words that mean a lot to me, the harder the race the more I find myself in my element and loving it and life, Maybe I am 67% hippopotamus – I’m still slow but I have a lot of fun.

The Doynton Hard Half Marathon is my clubs race and (another) one that I have found myself to be cursed at, each year I have been intending to run and through a wacky combination of illness and injury I had never even collected a race number. Picking up my race number and toeing the start line I therefore considered as a PB. Every step after was going to be a bonus – Maybe I should DNF to avoid setting an unbeatable PB…

In 2017 I had managed to marshal swapping from tail runner at the last minute so had got involved at least. Doynton for Emerson’s Green Running Club is like a military mission on the scale of the D-Day landings, every available club member seems to get involved in some capacity whether, volunteering, running or both. Every tree for the entire distance of the race seems to have a marshal located by it. In fact if you were of a dubious background (or from Kingswood) Doynton weekend is a perfect opportunity to get up to mischief in the Emerson’s Green area as practically everyone is 5 miles away in Doynton supporting the race.

The race is 99% offroad and the terrain mostly consists of 3 types of mud, dry mud, wet mud and what is affectionately known as cow mud. The fact that this is now a key marketing point for the race and it sells out quicker every year is testament to how stupid runners generally are. This year there was more dry mud than in some of the previous years but it was still predominately made up of the other two kinds of mud.

The Race Headquarters this year had moved from the village hall to the cricket club and this gave the whole race a more cohesive joined up feel as well as more space, the drier weather conditions also massively helped as there was less undercover space to cower in if last year’s biblical conditions had once again come to pass. Fortunately conditions for this year’s race were rain free and surprisingly warm for January.

Pre-race entertainment was provided by Danny – This year he’d decided to run in skin tight leggings that he’d clearly had to spend several days squeezing into (think Olivia Newton John in Grease) which gave him a butt like two badly parked Volkswagens and if you gave it a cheeky slap it hummed like a tuning fork. There was also a local singing group to provide some uplifting music and MC Neil doing his best Jim Trott from the vicar of Dibley impression “There is no-no-no-no-no-no parking in the other field”

Neil played an evil trick on everyone though, after giving Mr Motivators apologies for not being able to lead the warm-up he did a lottery draw for a lucky victim to lead it. So he drew out a race number by random and everyone breathed a sigh of relief when it wasn’t theirs. Turns out he had fixed it and got a local PT to put on a fake number and get drawn out. Most attendees seemed to be sweating more at that point than in the whole race.

Time to start, the course is laid out as 3 different loops all heading into and out of Doynton which gives an opportunity for people to stop if they need to or miss the cut-offs but also means that no-one is too far away from the Start/Finish. The first loop is the hilliest and the longest going up to the highest point of the course. I start off in a gaggle of Emerson’s runners most of whom disappear up the road in short order. Having not run this far since last May (when I did that race that I’m now not allowed to talk about anymore) I was determined to take it easy on this first section. As soon as you leave the cricket club the road starts to both gain altitude and experience severe surface degredation. I and many others are soon reduced to walking, scrambling or calling for an UBER to reach the top, where I have to duck to avoid a passing satellite.

The first section is a mixture of ascents that tension your calf muscles like the twisted steel cables that hold up cable cars and descents that shred your quads like pushing a hard-boiled egg through a paper shredder. The descents are amazing fun picking up speed quicker than Felix Baumgartner freefalls, My joy is tempered however when I notice that when I descend like this my arms wave around as if I am doing the secret signal in Team America (F**k Yeah!).

We soon reach the first of the Pubs. Yeah, this race is so bad ass that it doesn’t bother with any of that Water station nonsense. This was the second year of the pubs and a lot of effort had gone into manufacturing these creations the year before. On offer at the pubs was Water, Cola, Non-alcoholic Lager and an array of snacks. This first one being located near the top of Tog Hill was called “The Dog Inn” I’m not going to explain the significance of that but locals will get the reference to this notorious location…

I’m now going to talk about the marshals, There are seemingly hundreds of them at this race and they have all made a massive effort, this year they have nearly all got inflatables and a lot of them are in costume. Some notable ones are Graham, dressed like a member of Iron Maiden and rocking out to “Run to The Hills” on loop for 14 hours non-stop, the race had finished long before but no-ones going to stop Graham rocking out, and Donna and Stuart who were playing ukuleleleles(?) and singing in the middle of nowhere. There is also club dwarf Mascot Matt who’s costume has longer legs than he does. Each year every marshal gets a little sign to take with them saying something like “Say Get Lost to Ed” for someone like me who has a massive blindspot with names this is a god-send as I can abuse each marshal individually without worrying about offending them by getting their names wrong.

Soon after the aid station I come across Brian-um-checks sign-Adrian in an inflatable duck suit. Adrian will do absolutely anything to get out of running anywhere and was also located here due to his dubious night time habits to save him on petrol costs later. As I leave his marshal point I hear a gunshot in the woods behind me, Oh well, I thought to myself best to avoid the duck a l’orange later.

I spend a while on the first loop running with some guys from the Forest of Dean running club, one guy seems determined to molest every marshal by demanding a High-6 and the others were clearly furriners with their Scottish accents, how they had survived unscathed in the forests eclectic gene pool is clearly to be questioned. I soon up my pace slightly as the banjo music starts to play… As the first loop ends I catch the club captain at a drinks station and we have an impromptu race by the church as our adoring fans (4 or 5 bored spectators cheer us on).

Loop 2 is much flatter than loop 1 and writing this several days later I don’t really remember much of it. I up my pace in this section. My main memory of this section is absolutely hating a flat concrete road section that just hurts so much in trail shoes. Bring back the hills, please. I think in this section there are some river crossings and I take the opportunity for a paddle and a bit of a wash in each one.

Loop 3 is horrible because you know it’s not far to go now but your hip flexors and back have given up the ghost and there are still some evil climbs to conquer. Kudos to several marshals from earlier stations who have hotfooted it from their previous station to their new one in time to abuse me all over again. This section goes near Wick quarry and through the Golden Valley – presumably named after all the runners forced to temporarily stop after being plied with non-alcoholic lager by the nefarious duo of Laura and Kelly at the previous pub.

At some point on this loop there is a steel band playing in the middle of nowhere, a photographer positioned seemingly with the express purpose of capturing the moments that runners get turned the wrong way up on a steep slope to send into Harry Hill (Danny’s alter ego?) for £250. On this last section there are also some strange Bitton types who have volunteered – Is that allowed? Oh well at least it encourages you to keep the pace up…

Near the finish I pass Deadly Dave and Sheena, Dave moving bow-legged like he has something urgent on special delivery. I thought you were supposed to wait until after the race to join the ministry of silly walks? I can now hear the dulcet tones of MC Neil in the distance over the PA system and despite the soporific effect of this I manage to up the pace.

Back into Doynton and there is one corner left. Up ahead of me there is a competitor and the idiot chip in my brain fires up again. Now I have absolutely no problem by being beaten by anybody unless they happen to be within catching distance within the last 100-150m. So there is this guy just ahead and the idiot chip lights up like a frigging Christmas tree and my legs and arms do that random facsimile of a sprint. It’s the end of a half marathon FFS and I’m in about 7000th place beating this guy is going to make sweet FA distance to either my time or overall finishing place but nope. Logic loses and so Captain Dumbarse does a sprint finish. Even more stupidly I punch the air as I cross the line as if I have won something – what a prize plonker.

All of the speedy club members AND EVEN club totem pole Steve have finished in front of me and had time to change, go home and enter next years race before coming back to cheer on everyone else. Never mind I get a sneaky cuddle with Steve in the showers before his wife finishes – She’s the jealous type and wants all my cuddles for herself. 

The goody bags are ace, each one crammed with enough sugary substances to give you Type 2 diabetes twice over, they also don’t contain anything ridiculous like Bounty’s and a great Orange finishers shirt that is in no way is the same colour they give to deathrow inmates in the USA…

I have to leave before I get too cold as I still have to cycle home – Now its not far but there is a reasonably steep hill on the A420 to negotiate en-route. There is also Ruth the Drive on her 743rd journey up and down the road in the shuttle bus between the race car park to avoid. I am quite proud to say I chickened out of the hill and pushed my bike up the path rather than wobbled all over the road in granny gear. When I got home finding out that I am now unable to bend at all the places where I normally can I cut all my clothes off with scissors and sort of fall into the bath so that my feet are sticking up at the head end. The hot water eventually allows me to temporarily regain the sort of mobility a 104 year old would be proud of. 3 days later I am still walking like John Wayne with a turtlehead poking out and stairs are being negotiated in that strange sort of crab like motion that immediately identifies you as a runner.

This is a horrible stupid race. When does 2020’s open? If you are anywhere near Bristol in January 2020 you have to get involved in this race whether running or volunteering, it is without doubt the best race in the area and the organisation goes to incredible lengths to make each year an improvement on the previous one. I just hope next years is both hillier and harder… Massive thanks to all those involved in putting this monster on, it is most appreciated.

Sincere apologies to anyone I have abused either here or on the day, bigger apologies to anyone I neglected to abuse…