Getting home at fifteen minutes past midnight wasn’t part of the plan, but then again leaving home with only 90 minutes of daylight, 30% charge for my electric car, and not checking the weather forecast indicates that maybe there wasn’t that much planning involved today.
The idea was fairly sound, head out from Groombridge towards East Grinstead taking on the main elevation at the midpoint and then a fairly easy cruise home. The temp was -1, a slight improvement on -4 the previous day and even though the route was mostly trails it was going to be a nice cycle track route. Time to start – 14:50, 1 hour before sunset.
The first photos paint a nice, civilised picture, daylight, dry track, and quiet. It lasted just 5km before things started changing. First it seemed like some of the frost was melting and dripping from the trees but before long the flakes of snow were growing in size and the ground was beginning to whiten. For a moment I shared the track, smiles and pleasantries with three horses and riders, and then onwards into the blizzard.
The issue I have with running in these conditions has always been inhaling snowflakes! I thought my Vegan Runners buff would come to the rescue but as it got wetter it started to feel more akin to a method of torture in itself so that was no good. Head down and get on with it, at least my breathing rate was fairly comfortable, and the snow wasn’t slowing my pace.
10km in and now there was about 5cm of snow on the ground and at the road crossings cars were driving very cautiously. On the trail a few cyclists were hiding under railway bridges, and one had helpfully made a line for me to follow through the snow.
I made the halfway point in 1hr 8mins, the rise to the roundabout was a little cheekier then expected, swinging around a lamppost and a quick smile as it’s “easy now”, all downhill and all towards home. NB, if you’re going to attempt the FKT in a single direction then East Grinstead to Groombridge is a no-brainer.
Back at the road crossing for the A22 and cars are clearly struggling, the snow is still falling heavily (it has been all this time), and daylight is clearly giving up. I walk a bit here to get my headtorch out and set-up, see not completely unprepared! Just over 11km to go. The snow is about 10cm deep now, a nice crunch to each step.
The beam of the headtorch was very entertaining for a few minutes with illuminated snowflakes shooting past my face like Star Trek warp speed. I say a few minutes because apparently I hadn’t charged it up in a while and with a couple of sudden warning flashes the torch was now in a minimal power setting and visibility just a couple of meters.
Half marathon done now, just 8km to go. Big heavy snowflakes have given way to smaller slushy ones. I’m not sure if it’s the snow, the cold, or last week’s 50k race, but these last few km are really starting to bite.
The route is one of the easiest to navigate, cycle route 21 the whole way with only a few road crossings and kinks to deal with. It’s predictable that when you get tired, running in a snowstorm, in the dark, with a failing torch, that you’re going to miss something. Sure enough at 25km there’s a little wiggle as you cross under the road at Hartfield which took me a moment to get my head around. There are good signposts so you shouldn’t need a map or route on your watch in normal conditions.
I was fading in the last few km and trying to drink my gel water mix had been problematic for a while with the nozzle on my bottle freezing up but crossing another road with stranded motorists, under the rail bridge, and down the final straight and I was done! 2:22:33. I was going to take a finish photo but my phone had crashed through a combination of the moisture and cold and when I did get it switched on it said I had to wait 15 minutes before I could use it!
There were two cars trying to get up the hill into Groombridge on the road that I’d parked on, getting halfway up before reversing back down. While the run was over my evening was not! Back at the car I quickly changed into the spare base layer and hat which I had carried with me before spending 10 minutes clearing off snow.
Without going into the full detail I got up the hill fine, out of Groombridge, and onto the main road for Tunbridge wells where I sat in traffic for two hours. This drained my battery to 1% so I left the car and searched out dinner at Wagamamas. After dinner managed to find a charging point in a nice warm underground carpark but couldn’t get the system to activate. Ended up running an extension lead to a stairwell and waiting for a further hour to get enough charge to go home, 6hrs 30mins later.
In summary, an easy to navigate, fairly flat, and well-maintained path through the countryside; but can be a full adventure if you’re “lucky”. Just don’t let me loose in the mountains yet!