Stubbington Green Runners

When I first looked at the Portsmouth Joggers website to print off my entry form for the plod in late January, I noticed an excellent Google Earth course map was available.  I quickly reviewed it to see if any changes had been made to the course and was delighted to see that we no longer had to go over top of Butser Hill, the new route took a sharp right turn at what looked only half way up.  I paid no further attention to the map and immediately put my entry in the post feeling very confident.

It wasn’t until a couple of weeks later that Chris Hall and Tony Smith mentioned they had recc’d the course and confirmed that the new Butser route was just as hard as before.  Introducing the vertical “Rake Bottom”.   They also confirmed 2 additional loops had been added early in the race. One at 7 miles down and then up the Winchester side of Old Winchester Hill and another extra detour through Hen Wood 2 miles later.  

Small Down, Park Hill, Barrow Hill, the decent down Limekiln Lane, the last climb back up to the South Downs Way and the relatively flat but never ending final mile to the finish at the Sustainability Centre all remained.

Chris mentioned his recce took him just over 3 hours so I asked him what he was hoping to do in the race.  “I don’t care” was his reply, “as long as I beat you !”.  He was obviously still thinking about the Stubbington Green 10K.

Sunday 27th Feb arrived, and the sun was shining. Temperature was around 7 degrees.  There was a touch of spring in the air. I set off with my brother Steve and Tony.  It was a lovely morning for a long run in the countryside.

Tony starting to disappear up the road shortly before the new section at Winchester Hill, which was very interesting.  It was a bit like running down a ladder only there were no steps.  I saw Nick Baker of Denmead who normally wins this race in a pair of racing flats at the start.  I’ve no idea how he could have got down there in one piece.  I took a large slide near the bottom even with a pair of mud rocs on.  I continued to run with Steve though the new Hen Wood route which was much better to be honest and running across the open fields after East Meon, there seemed to be a lot more gates and hurdles to clamber over.  Steve was pressing on at that stage, which was handy as he had to open all the gates for me.  

When we finally got to Buster Hill, and “Rake Bottom”, most were walking up the side of the path clinging on to the fence.  I looked up and saw Tony at the top and heading back down again. He was going really well.  When I got to the top, I looked back down to see Chris about half way up.  He shouted some encouragement, well I think it was encouragement!.   So it was down Limekiln Lane, and back round to the final hill that goes back up to the South Downs Way.  That was where I saw Tony again, unfortunately on the side of the road.  He had badly twisted his ankle and was trying to unwrap a silver blanket.  A real shame, he would have finished well inside the top 10.  My brother also packed in there as well.  He hadn’t really done any mileage in training to be honest.  The weather had deteriorated when I got back up to the top of the final hill, and saw Chris again, but this time only about 30 meters behind me.  I carried on down the last mile but felt like I was towing a caravan and he came steaming past chasing this other runner from Herne Hill.  

I got to the finish in 17th place at 2.42.33 which I was really pleased with, I was about 10 minutes quicker than last year.  It was a great finish from Chris though.  He finished 30 seconds in front of me.  I was also really pleased to see Lisa waiting for me at the finish, but she took one look at me and I don’t think she fancied giving me a hug !.

Daniel Gueran also finished well, and congratulations all the other Stubbington Runners who got round.
This is a tough long race, and as usual was brilliantly organised and marshalled by Pompy Joggers. David Jeffery

Place	Time	Name	Club	Cat
16	02:42:02	HALL, Chris	Stubbington Green Runners and AC	Veteran Men
17	02:42:33	JEFFERY, David	Stubbington Green Runners and AC	Veteran Men
29	02:50:35	GUERAN, Daniel	Stubbington Green Runners and AC	Senior Men
122	03:26:01	CRANE, Nick	Stubbington Green Runners and AC	Veteran Men
136	03:29:10	MARTIN, Steve	Stubbington Green Runners and AC	Veteran Men
180	03:38:53	JARVIS, Neil	Stubbington Green Runners and AC	Veteran Men
191	03:41:35	WHITE, Alan	Stubbington Green Runners and AC	Veteran Men
199	03:43:19	WHITCHER, Nigel	Stubbington Green Runners and AC	Veteran Men
247	03:58:06	WOODMAN, Julie	Stubbington Green Runners and AC	Veteran Ladies
270	04:05:28	BECK, Eric	Stubbington Green Runners and AC	Veteran Men
339	04:41:14	NICHOLSON, John	Stubbington Green Runners	Senior Men