Cardington Cracker Marshalling - 05/12/2010

Steve Cale, leading Andy Davies narrowly at Comley

Still feeling a bit rough from the cold I've had this week, so I decided to help out and marshall at this race.

The RO asked me to look after the road crossing at Comley Farm, so I jogged over from HQ at Cardington, arriving at about 11:05, which gave me ten minutes to get sorted out.

Runners descending the Lawley toward me at Comley

The runners come off the Lawley down a farm lane with a sharp left hand bend about 30 yards before the road crossing and this was absolutely black ice, so I stood on the corner for the quicker runners, shouting warnings about the ice and asking them to take care on the road crossing. As the field went through I reckoned the road was the greater hazard for the slower runners so I moved down there after a bit. I managed to take photos of many of the runners, and they are posted here.

When the last couple of runners came through I decided to follow them through to the next checkpoint and collect the flags and signs up. The next check was at the road under Caer Caradoc and was manned by a lady and her daughter, so I thought I'd carry on with the back markers and remove the flags on the ascent of Caer Caradoc.

Caer Caradoc from Comley - you can make out runners near the top

At the top one of the back markers decided to call it a day, so he went down with Chris, the summit marshall, by an easy route, and I continued on down the race route to collect more flags.

Collecting flags on the summit of Caer Caradoc

At the bottom, I picked up the path through Cwms and jogged back over the col to the road at Willstone and back into Cardington.

I ended up running 7.2 miles and 1,510', but mostly at a very slow pace, following the tail enders and carrying a fairly heavy sack.

My total distance (24.7 miles) for this week is ok considering most of it has been wiped out with a head cold, but I haven't been able to get the climbing in (only 2,340' this week, about half the quota). Next week should be better!

The rolling four week total includes a couple of poor weeks and is the worst it's been for some time at 96.3 miles and 14,470' of ascent. BUT... the Christmas break is coming up soon, and I may have a go at the Gill Harris round on Saturday if the weather's ok.