The "Winter Tanners"

Answers to questions first.

1. "Winter" because there's a "Tanners Marathon" in summer; this is the January version.
2. "Tanners" relates to "Tanner's Hatch", which was a pair of cottages restored to create a Youth Hostel in the Surrey Hills. The first Tanners Marathon was created by the Epsom and Ewell YHA to keep the footpaths of Surrey in use, and therefore in existence. Good job too.
3. Despite being referred to as a marathon, it's not 26.2 miles. There are twenty mile, and thirty mile options, the route is changed with every event, with participants given a list of directions to follow, rather than any course waymarking. The Winter Tanners is five years older than the London Marathon
4. They're well attended by hundreds of walkers and runners each year. These days they're organised by the Long Distance Walkers Association, who organise hundreds of these Challenge events all over the country every weekend.

My bit:

What a great day to be running!

I'd signed up for this event before Christmas, and the onset of Janathon was simply going to make it more of a challenge for me, since I was going to have to go a bit slower than I might normally like. Today, as it turned out, it made no difference, as this year's route took massive advantage from some of the most spectacular views within the Surrey Hills.

GV summiting Juniper Hill into the morning sun (pic by Javed)

I arrived a little later than planned, due to the lethally icy conditions on the roads near home, but regular long-distance running buddy Javed was waiting for me at the start.

Javed is an excellent runner, and always good company on training runs, and in events themselves. He likes to regularly do a bit more distance than I would normally, and this year he'll be going back to the Thames Ring 250 (as in miles), in an attempt to beat his PB, which I think is currently around 94-95 hours. He may correct me.

Javed's also been key in bringing members of the Hart Road Runners club over to the "Dark Side" of long distance trail running, and Neil and Fiona were here from the club to run the thirty miler, plus Carol, Angela and Midge hiking the twenty.

Today's route was a mostly out and back affair, starting with a climb over Juniper Hill (little sister to Box Hill) into the morning sunshine, and an inspiring descent, contouring the southern slopes to a breathtaking view of the Surrey Hills in their frosty glory.

Leith Hill Tower - today we didn't have the clouds

As the frost thawed, the top layer soon became slippery, so through cattle poached field gates, and along wood edges our pace slowed as we slipped about. Still, plenty of time to take in the sights under a blue-bird sky, and swot up on the route descriptions.

Crossing through Holmwood Common and south across open valleys, from the most southerly point we turned to climb Leith Hill, the second highest point in south east England at 294m (highest if you climb to the top of it's gothic tower, but we graciously declined).

Some tricky navigation took us to the second of three checkpoints, where our numbers and times are recorded, and jaffa cakes and cups of tea are on offer (keep your gels, Paula). By this time I'd gone ahead of Javed, but since he typically knows about 80% of all the runners in any long distance trail event, I never worry about him being stuck on his own.

I pushed on to make the most of some good running off the slopes of Wotton Common, and other than a wrong turn (an extra 0.6 miles for Janathon I thought to myself), made reasonable time to the foot of Ranmore Common on the North Downs. It was here that I realised I'd stopped my Garmin, so made a mental note of my position, and sighed in relief that I'd done more than the 23.08 miles it showed (manual adjustments have been made in RuningFree using a Mapometer file), before battling the steep incline ahead.

The last five miles took a little more effort to keep the legs turning over. Since the twenty milers had rejoined our route, there were a few more people to say hello to, and a bit of support (peer pressure) is always good at boosting the pace. I managed to catch up a fellow runner with a few miles to go, and this spurred him on to accelerate, and me to stay in touch, to log a couple of eight-and-a-half-minute miles over the flattening countryside. Within the final mile I took the lead, and pushed home for a 5:18 finish.

All HRR runners came home safely a little later on, including Neil on his debut at this distance, who can now call himself an "ultra-marathon runner". His journey to the Dark Side is complete.

If this sounds like it could be your cup of tea, look up the Long Distance Walkers Association for a list of Challenge events near you. They're open to non-members, held on weekends, and extremely good value.

Right, up to Scotland for a couple of days of fieldwork tomorrow. Best pack my snow shoes!


Summary:
Today: 30.6 miles, 5:18 hrs, 3810 cals
January: 148.9 miles, 21:57 hrs, 20101 cals