Dirt Half Challenge meets expectations

Last Saturday saw the second running of the Dirt Half Challenge, a great race that starts and finishes on the southern outskirts of Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire,  takes the runners north along the Grand Union Canal for 5 miles, up into Great Brickhill, across through the woods in Rushmere Park, and down the Greensand Ridge before 3 more flat miles along the canal, and the final climb up around Tiddenfoot Pit back to the finish beside Cedars Upper School.

I had planned to take photos at the Three Locks pub, and then again on the canal at a point quite close to the finish, as I had last year. However in the week before the race, Andy Hulley, the organiser, aked if I would consider instead going up into Rushmere Park and taking photos of the runners coming through the woods. Always eager to please, I said yes, subject to there being enough light. Last year the race had taken place on a dank day which did nothing for my photography and meant that I struggled to get good sharp images. I needn't have worried, as last Saturday was in fact so bright and sunny, that any runner wearing reflective clothing was almost too bright. I did get up into the woods, and found a nice spot in a small glade where the runners would all be coming past, and got all the photos I wanted.

My plan for the day was to take photos of everybody streaming past me at the start of the event, and I wobbled at the top of my step ladder as they did so that I was able to look down at everyone. I'd realised that I might be able to stop by the canal on my way to Rushmere Park and take a few more photos, and in fact about half of the 448 runners had gone by before I had to carry on up Old Linslade Road and get to my next photo opportunity.

It wasn't long before Greg Spellman, who went on to win the race (repeating his success of last year), came by . . and 65 minutes of shouting and shutter pushing later, the tail cyclist Clive Thomas came by. In between them had been runners of all ages and abilities, wearing all manner of colours, and mostly smiling broadly too. By this time they were in the 9th mile, and they were on their way back down to the canal.

Around 380 of the runners had already finished by the time I returned to Race HQ, so there weren't many of them still out there for me to take photos of. It didn't seem long before they were all back in, and Clive had reappeared on his bike, and we could put everything away and go home.

Several runners said how much they were enjoying themselves as they ran by, and others have commented on how much they enjoyed themselves when buying photos from me. I can only agree, and say that from my perspective it seems to be a great race to take part in. As with most of the races I take photos of, it's one I'd love to take part in myself one day.

Meanwhile, I'm already looking forward to taking photos there next year, and I've got almost 12 months to walk the course and find somewhere different to take my photos. This year's set can be found here on my website, with an executive summary here, in Facebook . .

Coming to a corner . .

I raced on Sunday . . or maybe I should say that I took part in a race. It was extremely hard work, but well worth the effort . .

I've continued to run in different parkruns through the autumn, at East Park in Hull, Concord Park in Sheffield, Braunstone Park in Leicester, Southwick Country Park in Trowbridge and at Rye Meadow in Abingdon . . and I've taken photos a few times at Abingdon too . . here's me running past Southwick's Spirit of parkunner statue at the start of the final lap . . thanks to Andrew Morrison for the photo . .

So Southwick's time came as a surprise. But also a relief. Because at the end of October in 2009 I took over 30 minutes for a 5k for the first time (and that was a very unwelcome shock, believe me). Since then I've struggled with my breathing and have tried to learn to breath whist running again. Finally I understood that I had become obsessed with my breathing, and so had to learn to ignore it, and allow it to take care of itself. And finally it feels as if my hard work is paying off.

I wouldn't say that I've turned a corner, but I've certainly arrived at one. I've begun going to my running club on Wednesday evenings, where there is now a bridging group to help aid the transition from new runner to joining the regular groups. And for someone returning from illness or injury, the bridging group is invaluable. So having not run through either of the past two winters, I'm planning on training right through this one, and we'll see where that gets me.

The race on Sunday was Watford Joggers' Autumn Challenge, where I've taken photos for the past two years, but not having had much take up decided just to come along without my cameras and watch, and cheer on some friends who were taking part. The recent good feeling I've had about my running persuaded me to enter what would be my first event of longer than 5k since I took part in the Guy Fawkes 10 miler in November 2009. I declared that to be my final race and I'm very pleased that it wasn't. I have to report that 5 miles is an awfully long way, that there were 4 runners less fast than I, and that Cassiobury Park and Whippendell Woods are quite beautiful in autumn sunshine. The avenue of trees above was great to run through on the way out of Cassiobury Park, but it was hard work going back the other way.

The previous day I'd been on photo duty at the 28th Abingdon parkrun, and here are a couple of photos taken during the run . .

followed by a little montage showing the fun we had outside Coffee Republic in the Market Place after the run . . 

On Saturday I'll be at the 2nd Dirt Half Marathon Challenge, at Leighton Buzzard . . and you'll find the photos here