Saturday 6 March 2010

Went to Sandy with Joanna to check out the route for the Sandy 10 mile race coming up in April. The run starts uphill and we wanted to check this out. The intention was to run the first couple of miles of the course and then return. The hill up through the trees after crossing the railway line is quite steep, but actually not too bad. Just as the road (which has blocked off to through traffic for several years now) joins the main road to Everton (not the one in Liverpool!), it goes steeply downhill for 100metres before going back up. Something to be aware of for the finish.

On reaching roughly the 2 mile mark I was ready to turn back, Joanna however had other ideas and wanted to carry on for the whole 10 miles. Somewhat reluctantly (as it was already getting late in the afternoon and there is no path along the road) I agreed.

Fortunately there was not much traffic and the verge along the road was fairly wide and flat, so it was easy to step off the road to avoid oncoming vehicles. Most Cambridgeshire verges have gullies dug in them to allow water to drain off the road. Maybe the easy draining sandy soil here doesn't require this.

The stretch from Everton to the edge of Potton seemed a long way, but is less than a mile. From here the road back towards Gamlingay took us passed the half way stage and into Cambridgeshire. The triangle loop was completed with a 3/4 mile stretch back into Bedfordshire and into Everton.

The route then retraced our steps back to the sand hills of Sandy. Along this downhill stretch I was able to pick up some speed, at times almost sprinting as I allowed gravity to carry me down the steeper bits.

All in all I found this quite a comfortable run and this has given me confidence for the actual event. Our time was 1'49". My target of under an hour and a half should be OK.