The Magnificent Eastnor Castle 7

My husband and I, along with a few members of our running club, recently ran the Magnificent Eastnor Castle 7 race. Organised by Ledbury and District Harriers, the seven mile trail race takes place in the grounds of Eastnor Castle in Herefordshire. It was the third race in our club’s off-road race series, following on from Pittville Park cross country and Cleevewold hilly half marathon.

It was a sunny day, with a cold wind. The race started at 11am, so there was no rush in the morning. We put the postcode into Maps and arrived a few minutes before we expected to. Suddenly there was a marshal in the road and a little yellow sign with a runner on it. Parking was on a big open area of grass, which also housed the registration tent and a block of four portable toilets – in opposite directions to each other. I’m not sure if there was a bag drop. We just kept our stuff in the car. Eastnor Castle was just above us.

We met up with our friends from the club and stood around chatting, queuing for the toilet and shivering! People who had done the race before did their best to describe it to us. The general view seemed to be that you don’t walk on this one, whereas most of us had walked the hills on Cleevewold the previous week.

We’d worked out that the elevation was pretty much proportional to Cleevewold – half the elevation for just over half the distance. I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to run. Usually if I’m running a half marathon, I do a bit over seven miles in an hour. But this was trails with hills thrown in. So I was estimating around an hour and five minutes.

There was just under 200 runners, with a big proportion of them from Chepstow Harriers and a fair few from Malvern Buzzards. They would be able to handle the hills! There were also about 50 people running with dogs on a canicross race on the same route. They were setting off 15 minutes later.

The start line was close to the registration tent. We headed back towards the toilets, then looped back parallel to where we’d just come from. And then we were climbing! The first hill was very long and looked very steep, but it didn’t feel as bad as it looked – possibly because it was right at the start of the race. I could see my husband ahead with another club member, then a lady from the club just behind him and the friend who’d paced me around Bourton 10k and to my home parkrun PB just in front of me. At the top of the hill, we turned right and headed along a surface which was almost a road, but not quite. We were still climbing gradually and the path was wide and a bit uneven.

The weather had been dry for a few weeks and we’d been torn over whether to wear trail shoes. It certainly wouldn’t be muddy. In the end, we decided to wear them because they probably give a bit more protection on uneven surfaces compared to road shoes.

I knew from looking at the elevation of the race that it started with three miles of climbing. Despite my determination not to walk, I did have a brief walk in the first 5k. As I’m very new to trail running and there’s a lot to deal with, with uneven surfaces, mud and all the hills, I take my lead from people around me. If I’m feeling exhausted and need to walk, and I can see some people walking around me, I will walk! Of course there are people who are used to running hills and trails who won’t need to walk.

I completed the first 5k in 27 minutes, which seemed pretty good. After that it was mainly downhill for a mile, then uphill again for another mile. In total, I had four short walks on the course. I don’t think they really affected my pace, as my running would have been so slow at those points and they helped me get my breath back and get my heart rate down a bit.

There was one water stop on the course, at 3.5 miles. I stopped briefly and made sure I drank it properly. I was also carrying a bit of Lucozade and a couple of Bloks fuel sweets in a horrible flavour. I meant to eat two, but I only remembered to eat one.

The ground was incredibly dry for most of the route, although I could see that some of it would be very muddy after rain. There was one short stretch with mud and puddles. I tried to avoid the first puddle, but managed to stumble straight into it. Remarkably for such a dry race, I ended up about as muddy as I did after the very muddy Pittville Park cross country.

There had been talk before the race about an obelisk. I was starting to wonder where it was. We went up a long, grassy hill, and there it was! It is a big monument on the very top of the hill and there were a few tourists and walkers wandering around it. I could see people in the distance running back down the hill. There was a surprisingly big loop before I was running back down the hill. At this point, I saw the only canicross runner I saw on the entire race, going in the opposite direction to me. They would have caught up the slower runners on the main race and the first dog actually finished just after me.

I think it was at this point that we were above Eastnor Castle, closer than we had been at the start. And finally I was going downhill! I knew that most of the final mile was downhill and it was pretty steep. The surface was wide, but very dusty and pretty rocky and uneven. There were also frequent gaps in the road with metal inside them – presumably some sort of drainage thing – which could have been a trip hazard. I ran pretty quickly, while keeping a very close eye on my feet and the ground. This is something I’m learning about trail running. You have to keep your concentration. You can’t rely on the ground and your feet like you can with road running.

I’d overtaken my friend from the club a mile or two earlier and was trying to catch a couple of ladies who were just in front of me. I’d overtaken them and they’d overtaken me several times during the race. I could see the registration tent in the distance. The finish line was close. When we got to the bottom of the hill, we had to do half a lap of the field before racing to the finish line. I decided I was going to beat the ladies in front of me. I know I’m not the fastest going uphill, but I’m quick on the flat. I overtook one, then raced the other to the line and beat her. My watch told me I’d run 59:59, which I was very happy with. I really hoped my chip time wouldn’t be over an hour.

My chip time was 59:55! My husband had finished a couple of minutes ahead of me. We were both very happy with our times and we enjoyed the Magnificent Eastnor Castle 7. We will definitely be back.