Last weekend, Newport & District Running Club’s Chas Bickford-Smith took on a tough challenge: the “Icing on the Cake” trail Half marathon on the Long Mynd. Afterwards, he was kind enough to send us this report:

On Saturday 3rd February, I completed the “Icing on the Cake” half marathon trail run over The Long Mynd and back again. The half marathon started in Carding Mill Valley, up the hills behind All Stretton and over the Long Mynd to the halfway point at Bridges, then back up over the Long Mynd, and down the rocky path into Carding Mill Valley to finish.

Leaving Newport at 7:30am, the weather looked quite good, even a few blue bits of sky were visible through the clouds. Getting closer to Church Stretton, the clouds were lower, it was raining and the top of the Long Mynd was in cloud.

Chas (left) and friends at the race

Car parked, rain coat on to trudge up to the registration tent, then back down to the car, changed, and back up to the start – again! At 9am, off we went, I was running with a couple of friends and we had started near the back of the field, so down the road was OK, but the first climb was congested and a slow ascent behind many others. This continued until we got to the cloud-covered wet and windswept wide open grass areas on the top of the Long Mynd.

Phew… the first of the two big climbs was over, we then ran on road and tracks across the top and down, down, down the Long Mynd to Bridges. There was little respite as the climb on the road started straight after the Bridges pub, through muddy farm yards, up a track and onto more uphill, over a very boggy moorland which was a slow walk, hoping I didn’t lose my shoes as they sank into the peat.

Then back onto tracks and road to then realise it was downhill to the finish and thoughts of “I could finish in sub-2 hours”. Coming down the, at times, slippery rocky path to the finish, it soon became apparent that I would finish just after 2 hours, but better to finish than be a crumpled injured heap on the ground with another case of broken ribs.

Chas’ finishers’ medal

I finished in 2 hours and 3 minutes, and came 15th out of 126 starters. My friends were a bit slower, so I had been back to the car and changed into warm clothes before they finished – the reason for me being dressed and them still in running gear in the photo.

Overall it was a really good event; organisation was good, the course well marked with feed stations and marshals. There was a full marathon but this was 2 laps of the same and so I felt a half was enough.