Sunday morning say Deke Banks and Andrew Tudor take on the Trimpell 20.
Andrew tells all about their adventures over the border in Lancashire:
We set off early the Lancaster for the Trimpell 20 Miler, arriving in Lancaster surrounded by beautiful countryside, historic buildings and the seafront not far off either. With the Sun shining we were feeling fresh and looking forward to the challenge ahead.
Registration was in Her Majesty’s Prison Lancaster Castle, something we weren’t expecting!
It’s a beautiful building and it was quite surreal to go inside and see the old prison cells and walk ways
After registration we made our way down to the starting area, which was a couple of fields at the side of a bike path. The sun was still shining and there was a lovely view of the castle and church at the top of the hill and the knowledge we would be heading up the hill to the finish at the castle after nearly 20 miles of running.
The race set off at 11am with over a 1,000 runners, some serious athletes, some club runners and some there to challenge themselves or in fancy dress.
It was a nice flat route for the most of it, taking us along the River Lune for most of the course, crossing over the iconic Lancaster Millennium Bridge down into Morecambe with views of Morecambe Bay, back around and over the Millennium Bridge out towards Caton again alongside the River Lune. We mostly ran along cycle paths with just a few hundred meters at the side of a road during the turn at just over 13 miles. The route then headed back down the cycle paths crossing bridges with wonderful views of the River Lune and the rapids before hitting the big hill up to the finish line at the Castle (the hilly training sessions we’d been doing earlier in the week really paid off as I overtook about 10 people on the final climb and felt really strong).
I was very happy and surprised with my time (as you can see from the picture below when I see the big clock), I just wanted to get around in 3 hours.
Overall it was an excellent day out and brilliant race and course. I was very happy with my time and Deke was happy with his (even if this was a little slower than he’s capable of) as he’s had a bit of a niggling knee so he took it easy and came through with hardly any pain.
It has given us both the confidence that we can complete the 26.2 miles waiting for us in London in April and maintain a decent pace throughout.
Provisional results were:
- Deke: Position 189 with a time of 2:35:28
- Andrew: Position 289 with a time of 2:48:15
Have a look at some of the pictures of Deke and Andrew and the Trimpell 20: