"Each step forward has a sacred meaning of its own"   Sri Chinmoy

Mendip Muddle - October 2022

It took a little courage to enter this superb trail race, as last year's event was the one in which I triggered a knee injury that kept me off running for several months. It wasn't a new injury, just a recurrence of an old patella tendonitis, but I was desperate to avoid a repeat of that when I signed up for the Mendip Muddle 2022. There were a lot of factors in my favour - new, cushioned trail shoes, some recent fell runs with no ill effects and of course the months of weight-training that I'd been prescribed to fix the problem by the UWE physio team. Put all that together and surely it should be fine? Oh well, only one way to find out!

After a night of rain we had the most perfect clear skies and surprisingly warm October sunshine on the day of the race. I warmed up with jogs, walk breaks and some ascents and descents of the steep slopes near the start. After a short briefing, 117 of us were off over the damp grass, running between the azure sky and the impossibly deep green of the valley. Velvet Bottom is an unusual landscape, a shallow dry valley with wooded fringes and the occasional drop down a slope, or step-up over a stone wall, to negotiate. It makes a perfect first chapter of the run and the occasional technical sections remind you that you're in a proper fell race even though you have started with a gentle down hill instead of a mad climb.

Gradually the field strung out and then we were skirting fields and nipping through woods, all the time following well-placed hazard tape markers and the directions of enthusiastic marshals. Soon we were on the first of the two big ascents, a long runnable climb that ended on the open moorland of Beacon Batch. I was holding back a little according to heart rate, not wanting to go deep into the red and blow up later on, but I was keeping pace with a mixed club-runner crowd and felt I was working hard enough. I attributed last year's injury to overcooking the downhills, so after that first climb when we started to head down I consciously kept my stride short, ran on the soft stuff, allowed people to pass me and didn't try to race. When the first drink station came I nabbed some water and started on the gels - I had 3 in my bum bag which should be an hour's worth of fuel so all I had to do was take them roughly every 2 miles to see me through the second half without getting that sinking feeling that comes when the carbs run out.

As soon as I hit that high ground at the top of Beacon Batch, I could feel my mind opening up to drink in the views, out over the fields and forests with the sea in the distance over near Weston and Wales just about in view beyond the sea. At the marshal points there was music playing, which is not something I'd vote for on a mountain race, but it did up the energy levels a bit especially as the marshals themselves were so happy and energetic, encouraging every runner. Having told myself I couldn't race flat out like in 2021 I felt more free to soak up the scenery and it made the race more joyful and less testing, even though I was probably working just as hard, running the uphills with a bit more intensity to compensate for the slower descents.

My favourite part of the race came at roughly the half way mark, where we came close to the A road and turned back on to the Mendips through silent forest alongside a stream - a stark contrast entering that serene, sylvan world after the open skies and shouts of encouragement a few minutes before on the high ground. In that second half I felt some pain in my feet, partly from desending on my forefoot to protect my knees, but it soon eased and the gels and some sensible pacing meant I had the energy to move up the field a little. The big climb back over Beacon Batch came in stages, long straight paths that climbed then dipped then turned a corner and climbed again, then I was caught by another runner who chatted with me for a while (I managed a few words at a time which surprised me!). We'd both hit a patch where it was hard going so we encouraged each other with the odd breathless remark.

With the finish approaching I took the hard, on-road descent with shorter strides than last year and then it was a gruelling finishing sprint (in reality barely a surge, just hanging on really) on the road, across a field and on to a gravel track for that long drag to the flags.

In the end I finished happy and undamaged - a win-win. I'd run hard, paced it well, done enough in terms of holding back on the downhills to save myself from another race-induced injury. I've had enough of those over the years! I knew I'd left nothing out there on the course though, as I was spent when I crossed the line. I thought I had run the same time as 2021 but later when the results came, out I saw I had beaten last year by a couple of minutes (though there was a diversion at one point because of Ash Die-Back, so maybe it was slightly shorter?) and surpassed my previous effort by nabbing third place male vet-50. That got me "on the board" on the online results, as they showed the top 3 in each age group, and it felt like a result.

I really should have discovered this amazing race years ago - it's my local fell race after all and with all those runnable climbs and inspiring views, the sheer variety of lanscapes you have to cross and re-cross, it really does have everything. A BIG THANK YOU to Jeremy for his facebook photos - amazing quality for mid-race pics and he captured every runner twice, nice work!

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