Benfleet 15 results

18 January 2016 - By Marc Underdown

My thanks to Anita for supplying a thorough race report for yesterday’s easy 15 miler!

Pete was our first runner home powering through the mud and making the top 20. The weather was kind to us all sunny and cold ….. almost perfect for running. The first 2 miles were a hard slog starting at the top of the country park with a fairly sharp descent followed by and equally sharp ascent to get us nice and warmed up. Having negotiated the first hills we ran through a boggy field before the next ascent up past the castle to a welcome jelly baby station before heading down to our first people jam at a kissing gate (useful fuelling point for Jelly babies!). Next came more mud on a gradual uphill ‘surfing’ section before dropping down to loop round Leigh station and onto a relatively flat section. Soon after Anita lost her left shoe in a muddy patch, but fortunately Colleen was not far behind and kindly stopped to help her get it back on.  Next we crossed over to Canvey (8 miles in) glimpsing race leaders runners as they flashed past for their last 3 miles heading back into the mud. We continued along to the sea wall section where we could wave to our fellow runners on route back across the field which was a nice boost. At 10 miles the course turned round from the sea wall section and looped back along the grass. At 12 miles as we headed round Benfleet Station and up a nice steep hill back into the park for the next muddy bit. We headed back down and long a number of grassy bits before heading up another hill towards the infamous cattle grid and muddy hill. After negotiating this hill it was back down again before looping round and back up another hill and then down again. After completing that roller coaster section it was off along a fairly flat path past the welcome 14 mile mark  before the hairpin bends up to a steep narrow passage where marshals were on hand to give us a ‘leg up’ onto the slippery sloping path along to another small hill and the penultimate kissing gate. Then it was downhill to yep you guessed it another muddy patch before the final bend to the final kissing gate and a nice steep slope up to the finish.

Vicky Hunt was out first lady home in a storming 2.11.16 narrowly missing out overtaking Tony. It was nice to see Mark Finbow joining in the mudfest, Andrew Lager closing Mark down just passed Mark on the final hill to the finish. Colleen caught James K in the last mile but missed out on catching DJ who put a final push of speed on in the closing miles. Anita think she got the biggest PB of the day knocking off 9.5 mins with James Crisp closely on her heels knocking off 8.5 minutes from his PB. Both Bill and Jo also got PBs.

The marshalls were fantastic and gave lots of encouragement along the way keeping us all in good spirits.