Equinox 24 Hour Relay 21 / 22 September 2019
Mark Webster got a team of 8 together to do the Cotswolds 24 hour relay. About 3 days before we were due to take part the event organisers cancelled. The team had been planning for weeks and we were gutted not to be taking part.
After a couple of weeks Mark found the Equinox 24 hour relay and 5 or the original team were available and this was booked.
The venue was located at the Belvoir Castle Estate near Grantham and we decided to travel down in 2 VW vans and set up a camp area with tents, gazebo and club flags.
The team consisted of Mark, Andrew, Adam, Derick and Martin. Mark’s son James also came along and helped us with tea making etc..
We had a good camping spot on a corner.
When everything was set up we headed over to the event center and got some takeaway food and used the beer bus. We all decided we were not going to the beer mile and headed back to camp. We then decided to watch the beer mile and as Andrew and Mark had a beer in their hands, and were kind of dressed for running they made the correct choice and jumped into the start area. The start whistle went and about 100 runners downed a pint, then ran a mile as fast as they could. Our 2 runners were amazing and Andrew finished 3rd overall getting on the podium.
We spotted Doncaster Tri Club who had 3 teams at the event and said hi. The 2 clubs supported each other over the race.
Back to camp and an early night. I slept well but some of the other team members were cold.
Got up around 7:30 on race day and Mark made bacon sandwiches which were amazing (sausage sandwiches on Sunday and lots of cups of tea over the weekend). We came up with a running order and headed up to the start. The order was set as Mark, Andrew, Martin, Adam, Derick. Repeat as long as possible.
Very warm day, tough to run in between 12 noon and 6pm. One issue we had was the lack of drinking water on the site, water had to be boiled. So when Janet phoned to say she was popping over with Luke and asked what we needed we were grateful for the water they fetched is. It was great to see Stuart and Karen who popped over to see how we were getting on.
Mid afternoon we checked the team standings and we were 7th for the small team category. We checked again late afternoon and we were in 5th. We also noticed that we were 8th overall out of 909 categories. At around midnight we moved up to 3rd which was a massive shock, we hovered around this position until sunrise and found ourselves in 4th which was our finishing position for small teams (7th out of 909 teams). A brilliant team effort.
Sunday morning the weather changed and at times heavy rain occurred but overall the weather was very good. Thanks to Martyn Walter for the loan of his gazebo.
We had the opportunity to get another lap in but we could not catch 3rd and we were sure the team below us could not catch us so we decided to end out race 23 hours and 52 minutes in to the race.
Mark and Derick both covered 5 laps of 10km so 31 miles each and Andrew, Adam and Martin did 6 laps of 10km so covered 36.2 miles each. All 5 of us covered Ultra Distance (which was the aim before we started) Our average 10km lap time was 51 minutes.
Photos by https://www.curleyphotography.co.uk/
| Time of day | Lap time | Position Category (Overall) | ||
| 1 | Mark Webster | 12:51:53 | 00:51:20 | 72 (33) |
| Transition | 12:52:10 | 00:00:16 | 69 (32) | |
| 2 | Andrew Teasdale | 13:36:29 | 00:44:18 | 28 (16) |
| Transition | 13:36:46 | 00:00:17 | 27 (15) | |
| 3 | Martin James | 14:18:02 | 00:41:15 | 13 (8) |
| Transition | 14:18:17 | 00:00:15 | 12 (7) | |
| 4 | Adam Cotterill | 15:03:09 | 00:44:51 | 8 (5) |
| Transition | 15:03:26 | 00:00:17 | 7 (5) | |
| 5 | Derek Cave | 15:56:43 | 00:53:16 | 9 (5) |
| Transition | 15:57:02 | 00:00:18 | 9 (5) | |
| 6 | Mark Webster | 16:51:06 | 00:54:04 | 16 (11) |
| Transition | 16:51:23 | 00:00:17 | 16 (11) | |
| 7 | Andrew Teasdale | 17:35:12 | 00:43:48 | 14 (10) |
| Transition | 17:35:31 | 00:00:18 | 14 (10) | |
| 8 | Martin James | 18:17:23 | 00:41:52 | 8 (5) |
| Transition | 18:17:41 | 00:00:17 | 8 (5) | |
| 9 | Adam Cotterill | 19:02:24 | 00:44:43 | 8 (5) |
| Transition | 19:02:42 | 00:00:18 | 8 (5) | |
| 10 | Derek Cave | 19:57:56 | 00:55:13 | 9 (5) |
| Transition | 19:58:20 | 00:00:24 | 8 (5) | |
| 11 | Mark Webster | 20:57:00 | 00:58:40 | 14 (10) |
| Transition | 20:57:21 | 00:00:21 | 14 (10) | |
| 12 | Andrew Teasdale | 21:40:36 | 00:43:14 | 8 (5) |
| Transition | 21:41:00 | 00:00:24 | 8 (5) | |
| 13 | Martin James | 22:23:35 | 00:42:34 | 6 (4) |
| Transition | 22:23:58 | 00:00:22 | 6 (4) | |
| 14 | Lap14 Adam Cottrill | 23:10:10 | 00:46:12 | 5 (3) |
| Transition | 23:10:37 | 00:00:26 | 5 (3) | |
| 15 | Derek Cave | 00:10:27 | 00:59:50 | 7 (4) |
| Transition | 00:10:57 | 00:00:30 | 7 (4) | |
| 16 | Mark Webster | 01:08:54 | 00:57:56 | 7 (5) |
| Transition | 01:09:17 | 00:00:22 | 7 (5) | |
| 9 | Andrew Teasdale | 01:53:30 | 00:44:12 | 7 (5) |
| Transition | 01:54:00 | 00:00:29 | 7 (5) | |
| 10 | Martin James | 02:39:57 | 00:45:57 | 6 (4) |
| 6 | Transition | 02:40:20 | 00:00:23 | 5 (3) |
| Adam Cotterill | 03:30:58 | 00:50:38 | 5 (3) | |
| 7 | Transition | 03:31:24 | 00:00:25 | 5 (3) |
| Derek Cave | 04:36:01 | 01:04:37 | 7 (4) | |
| 8 | Transition | 04:36:29 | 00:00:27 | 7 (4) |
| Mark Webster | 05:39:26 | 01:02:56 | 7 (4) | |
| 9 | Transition | 05:39:54 | 00:00:28 | 7 (4) |
| 7 | Andrew Teasdale | 06:24:35 | 00:44:40 | 7 (4) |
| Transition | 06:24:57 | 00:00:22 | 7 (4) | |
| 8 | Martin James | 07:11:50 | 00:46:52 | 6 (4) |
| Transition | 07:12:13 | 00:00:22 | 6 (4) | |
| 9 | Adam Cotterill | 08:07:54 | 00:55:41 | 6 (4) |
| Transition | 08:08:20 | 00:00:25 | 6 (4) | |
| 10 | Derek Cave | 09:24:48 | 01:16:28 | 7 (4) |
| 8 | Transition | 09:25:09 | 00:00:21 | 7 (4) |
| Andrew Teasdale | 10:08:56 | 00:43:47 | 7 (4) | |
| 9 | Transition | 10:09:15 | 00:00:18 | 7 (4) |
| Martin James | 10:55:40 | 00:46:25 | 7 (4) | |
| 10 | Transition | 10:56:03 | 00:00:22 | 7 (4) |
| Adam Cotterill | 11:49:47 | 00:53:44 | 7 (4) |