Man v Horse 2017, Aldridge 10k, Land Aid 10k & Potters ‘Arf.

Man v Horse has long been on Shane Chapman’s bucket list. After convincing Chris Pearson, Adrian Middleton and Rob Eaton that it was a good idea they packed the camping gear and trail shoes and headed to Llanwrtyd Wells on the edge of the Brecon Beacons to tackle the 2017 edition.
Once the tent was erected and race numbers collected they headed to the famous pub where the silly bet that started it all was first made. Of course no sane and sober person would believe that a man could compete against a horse! In our heroes cases the visit to the pub wasn’t to deaden the pain but to carb up at the pasta party.
After a night of luxury in Ade’s tent they headed for the start line where they got chatting to other runners with the common question asked being ‘are you doing this as a relay team or solo’? ‘We are running solo’ was our heroes reply. The looks on the other runner’s faces said it all ‘ignorance is bliss they say’. There is no report of what the horses thought.
The race quickly left the town behind and headed up the hills tackling tough climbs on fire roads with single track sections and often deep slushy mud topped with pine needles, which you could probably disappear down if you fell.  Amongst the climbs were some quad hammering descents and a generous helping of water crossings.  The race was broken down to three sections for the benefit of the relay teams each as brutal as the other.
For Shane this has been one of the most challenging events he’s competed in not made any better by the heavy rain that fell before and during the event.  Shane would recommend this event to anyone who wants a challenge but warned ‘it’s as hard as it gets!’.
For the record horses took 8 of the first 10 places with the first team containing humans from the Royal Marines. Almost a 1000 horses and runners completed the course with Rob Eaton completing the 24 mile course in a chip time of 03:08:44 for 28^th place, Chris Pearson in 79^th in 03:31:47, our writer in 123^rd in 03:47:49 and Ade Middleton 273^rd in 04:17:22. Terrific endurance performances from the quartet particularly considering 3 of the 4 had tackled a spring marathon. Also for the record while horses dominated the leading positions our heroes did all beat a number of horses.
Colin Mee was the latest SDRR runner to pick up a race prize, by finishing 42^nd in the Aldridge 10k overall in a chip time of 43.34, and winning the MV60 award. Colin and Steve Leafe competed closely throughout the race, with Steve just edging ahead, to finish 41^st in a chip time of 43.27. The third runner home for SDRR was Richard Moore, who ran well on the hilly course for a finishing position of 324^th out of the 390 finishers in a time of 65m 12s.
Further afield, Jack Leafe ran well in the Land Aid 10k on a winding course around Clapham Common, finishing 7^th out of 656 finishers, in a time of 38m 47s.”
Tracey Glover (01:49), Paul Glover (01:53), Gary Price (01:59) and David Lunn (02:01) competed in the Potters ‘Arf on Sunday.