Standish Woodland Chase

Stonehouse was the venue for the latest Lord & Lady of the land event in the club series. The Standish Woodland Chase is 90% off-road as it firstly, climbs up on to the Cotswold escarpment and runs along two loops inside the Standish wood. Taking in a length of the Cotswold Way each time, the race has no flat sections as you follow over 1,300 feet of incline. Five runners from Tewkesbury flew the flag with Jon Mansfield having ran the event before in 2008. 16 years later, he had a strong memory of the descending back down to the finish, and the resulting sore quads for days after.

The race HQ was at the fabulous Horsemarling Farm Stonehouse Milk – Local, Fresh, Free Range Milk and registration was amongst free-range hens and car parking in a cowpat covered field. Emily Meadows joined Sue Baldwin and Sarah Dennis. While Andrew Gillett joined Jon.

With the very gentle climbing starting from the off, the real lung-busting started a couple of minutes into the run. With Andrew is good shape, he ambled behind Jon and was concerned as Jon was reduced to walking the more extreme climbs as the field ran up and past him. Once into the wood, Jon clawed back several places and even caught the strong running leading female on the final descent. Finishing in 70 minutes (just 5 minutes slower than 2008), Andrew followed 7 minutes later in 1:17 hr/mins for the 9.6 mile course.

In the time it took to pour a fresh milk from the genius self-service vending machine, Sarah and Sue were charging into the finish frantically – so much so, other runners leaped out of their way! With series points at stake, Sue had reserved enough energy to put a one second gap on Sarah. It was a masterclass in race tactics from Sue. Emily followed 11 minutes later looking smooth and without breaking a sweat. Her time of 1:48 hr was very credible giving the demands of the terrain.

01:10:13 Jon

01:17:10 Andrew

01:37:53 Sue

01:37:54 Sarah

01:48:12 Emily