A Bit of This and a Bit of That

 Last Saturday, I was marshalling at the Punk Panther Six Dales Way Ultra. I was due to take the afternoon shift, from one till five at Blubberhouses (which is on the road from Skipton to Harrogate). I've marshalled at Blubberhouses in the past and the idea of standing in a car park for four hours on a February afternoon was somewhat daunting. In the event, it turns out that the local church had offered us the use of their building so the checkpoint was indoors; absolute luxury!

Although I was marshalling, I still wanted to have a run myself. My plan was to get to Blubberhouses early in the morning and jog round the three reservoirs that are close to the village before heading on to do my stint helping runners on their way. In the event, I slept badly on Friday night and so I decided to just run round Fewston and Swinsty reservoirs; not a long run, but all I could fit in in the circumstances.

A somewhat muddy diversion

I parked my car, put my trail shoes on and sorted my pack. As I did so, I noticed that runners were already arriving at the church checkpoint a hundred yards away, so I wandered over to say hello and to have a look at where I would be spending my afternoon. It all looked rather nice.

One of the things about Punk Panther races is that they try to organise a variety of distances so that people of varying abilities can take place. On this event there were four distances, a half marathon then 20, 32 and 38 miles. The Blubberhouses checkpoint was about 10 miles from the start, and the half marathoners didn't reach it, while the 20 milers visited it once, and the others came there twice. There were a mixture of people doing all three distances turning up as I said hi.

I set off and headed round the reservoirs. There was nothing particular to report, apart from the fact that there is some work happening on one of the dams, so I had to take a couple of mile detour that a wasn't expecting. Apparently, the work has being going on for years, it's just that I've never run round there, so I was unaware of it. On my outward leg, I crossed paths with the last few runners heading into the checkpoint and on my return, I saw a few people on the longer distance route who were already on their homeward leg. It's always embarrassing when I'm lumbering along slowly to see people who've just run twenty odd miles looking fresh as a daisy.

Waiting for runners

I got back to the car, changed out of my soggy shoes and walked up to the church. Fiona, who is involved in leading services at the church from time to time offered me a coffee, which was very welcome and I snaffled one of the many bags of crisps that were there for the runners (there was not the slightest chance of us ever running short).  It's always hard to plan how many people are needed at a checkpoint; when the runners come in thick and fast, you need people to take down their numbers, help them get refills of water and food and sometimes someone just needs to sit down with a tired runner while they recover and then help them to get going again. As things were, the runners tended to arrive in ones and twos, so we were never really very busy, but then again, there were no long pauses between arrivals. For most of the time, I stood outside with Woody who was recording the numbers of each runner as they arrived to make sure that we lost no one.

Ultra running is a strange thing (and ultra-runners are strange people). Some people came into the checkpoint laughing and joking as though they were just out for a summer's afternoon stroll while others - who were often experienced distance athletes - struggled to get up the steps to the church. You never know how you are going to feel on the day, no matter how well you train. Almost everyone mentioned how bad the wind had been in the previous section of the trail and they were very grateful for somewhere warm. One or two hardy souls didn't bother coming into the checkpoint, they just had their numbers recorded and they headed off of the last stretch of 11 miles.

The runners all carried trackers, so we were able to tell when they were due to arrive. This meant that we could duck into the church from time to time to defrost. This generally worked well, apart from the time that two women arrived and thought that the checkpoint was closed because the door was closed. According to the trackers, they shouldn't have arrived for a few minutes. Hey ho, these things are not an exact science.

Eventually, the last runners came through and we were able to close the checkpoint down and I headed home after a day well spent. It wasn't the busiest or most dramatic day of my running life, but I did think that it was worth noting a few different thoughts.

• I love events that are run by relatively small, local companies. Although Punk Panther are growing, they still have a great family feel. Events are much more interesting as a runner or a volunteer if you know some of the people. Ranger Ultras and Ascend Events who I also volunteer for are similar in their friendly, low-key feel. I much prefer that to the big corporate events with loud PAs and such like.
• There is nothing I do in life where people express as much appreciation as they do when I volunteer at a race. If you are feeling low and think that having a hundred or so people thank you and tell you that you are wonderful, then sign up to volunteer at an ultra! 
• As a Christian, I really liked the fact that a church allowed us to use their building as a check point. (Especially when I heard about the wind conditions elsewhere on the course.) OK, it's not the core business of the church; but by being friendly and welcoming in this way it points to the reason that the church exists in the first place - to point to Jesus. 
• I'm running OK. I'm in the middle of a three week block of training that has me sprinting hard (for me, at least) during the week and that really tire my legs, so they were a little heavy on Saturday. I've got to get through this week, then I have a quieter week and from then on, I'll forget about sprinting and speed and give all of my attention to longer distances. That's the point where I normally get injured - so watch this space.