Today was the Calderdale relay for which I was running Leg 6, from somewhere-near-Brighouse to somewhere-near-Halifax.
Although I'd established email communication with my partner for the leg and the 4 other Ilkley runners on that leg, no cunning transport plans had been devised to get me and Mark (my partner) to or from the race.
Neither Mark nor I had a car we could use, and had been hoping that somehow things would work themselves out. Unfortunately they didn't. So last night I was still phoning round trying to sort out a plan. In the end it seemed most sensible that Mark and I stayed together, and I would re-arrange some family commitments and take our car. I did however have to drop off one daughter at 12.30 in Ilkley before we left.
Nevertheless, with a following wind I still thought we'd be ok.
We managed to navigate our way through Bradford (Mark is even newer to the area than me) and find the start of our leg. We got there with what I thought would be 20 minutes before we had to go. But then a long queue at registration, plus the need to go back to the car parked a few hundred meters away to get ready meant that we were still at the car when one of team mates managed to find us to handover the baton for us to go.
He'd had some problems finding us too, so he reckons we lost over 5 minutes. Not great.
The run itself was none too interesting, a strange mix of muddy fields, tarmac residential areas and canal towpath. As we hadn't had a chance to do any sort of reccie and were completely unfamiliar with the area, we had to take our time and read from the directions. Mark was actually a superb navigator, and over this terrain faster than me, so he could go ahead to see where to go next. We also adopted the technique of asking every passer-by if we were going the right way. No other teams seemed to be doing this or even consulting a map or the directions!
By the time we had finished, the team placing had dropped to 21st from 16th when the previous leg had finished.
We then had to try and get back to the start where we had left our car. Thankfully some kind runners from Clayton offered to take us back. They found it quite amusing when we relayed our story of not being at the handover in time. I don't think our Harrier team-mates found it quite as funny. I've just sent a grovelling apology to the team and maybe one day they'll look back and laugh. Maybe.
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