Race report by Dave Phillips.
In this case Wild is an adjective and a surname. My friend Stuart Wild used to run for Black Pear Joggers and did his 100th marathon at Snowdon in 2012 and it was my privilege to present him with his 100 Marathon Club trophy. Unfortunately he died shortly after and Black Pear put on a marathon in memory of him and called it the Wild One. Today was the 5th and it lived up to its name on a cold, windy and wet day. It was indeed a Wild event.
All 5 events have been multi lap off road events and today’s 10 lapper was both Wild and hard going all round the Perdiswell Country Park and golf course in Blackpole, Worcester.
It’s a great event for solo marathon runners (only 16 of us today) and teams of 2 who do 5 laps each or 3&7, 1&9,4&6 however they want to split it and teams of 5 doing 2 laps each. There were loads of teams from many clubs especially Black Pear entrants and I’ve tried to get Massey to enter teams but to no avail. 2018 maybe?
The HQ was the Old Elizabethans cricket club and the race started at 0930 but for me the fun stopped there. Usual breathing (or lack of it) made the going tough and as it was all off road on trails, tracks, grass, gravel paths it was very difficult terrain.
Plus as usual the courses are usual a mile or two over the 26.2 but who cares?
The great thing was that on each lap there were loads of runners and you could also see runners in all directions coming and going.
Well I struggled for 8 laps and offered to drop out as I was the only Solo left on the course and all the teams were in but Black Pear would not hear of it so I plodded on in the rain on my own.
Finally the cricket pitch came into view and the finish line was still there and several colleagues from Black Pear dragged me to the finish.
Massey must go next year. It’s a real team event especially the teams of 5 waiting and cheering on everyone waiting for their runner to finish the 2 laps. Really friendly with food, bar, goodie bag and medal.
What better way to spend Sunday even if it nearly finished me off?
Massey time: Dave Phillips 6hrs 35 mins.
Same stuff next Sat in the Forest Marathon (all off road) from Henley in Arden. 4 Massey runners doing it. If it’s anything like today I’m dreading it.