Lesley Pymm reports: This was the first time I have run the Coombe 8, near Coventry. As I left home and the temperature showed -7, I was confidently telling myself that it would warm up by the time I got there. As I drove down the motorway it got colder and colder.
Just before I got to Coombe it was showing -10, so I was pleased when it increased to -9.5 as I drove onto the car park. I really had not expected it to be so cold and did not have much of a choice of clothes with me, so ran in what I had! It is a long time since I ran in a jacket, but it stayed on all the time.
The course was fantastic. It is quite a complicated course which takes you round and about the park, over bridges, through woods and over fields. In the last couple of miles it goes through the bomb craters left by the Luftwaffe during the blitz of Coventry in WWII!
I can imagine that it could be quite tricky in wet and muddy weather, but it was just hard underfoot today as it was so frozen. The sun was shining and all in all it was a lovely run. The marshals were really supportive and it must have been so cold for them, at least the runners kept moving.
At the end we got a bottle of water – which was a bit cold so I didn’t bother with it, a long sleeved T-shirt and some very welcome soup. A definite for the diary.
Results here (PDF).
Barrie – there was very little wind, thank goodness. The weather was lovely – just cold. I have run in colder when I did the Polar Circle 1/2M last year, but I was expecting it to be cold then and had loads of layers on.
Congratulations Lesley.I don`t know of any other BvH runner who has competed in a race at such a low air temperature.You didn`t mention in your excellent Report whether or not there was a wind blowing.With `a chill factor` competitors might have felt even colder!
Barrie Roberts