Now then, no doubt your probably sat there thinking what’s a 10k run got to do with Land rovers well to be fair I think we all thought that when Tim sat at Club night and read out an email from Esther at CRUK requesting our assistance. Tim almost got shot down in flames as we began to panic he wanted us to run! But no it turned out CRUK needed our help to lay out and marshal the course.
I asked Tim for Esther’s contact details and a few others volunteered to help however I don’t think anyone knew what to expect, even after several emails between Esther and myself I still wasn’t sure but Saturday morning dawned and I arranged to meet Bondy at the ESSO station in Hathern I was however a tad early and Bondy literally had to drag Marie out of the shower into the 110 and they arrived at the ESSO with Marie sporting that well known latest female fashion accessory the bath towel around her head! (I bet you all wondered where that was going!) So with Marie drying her hair we set off to find Kedleston hall in Derbyshire, it was a dead easy run and we arrived to views like this,
We met Esther and two Laura’s and were split into two teams to arrange the marking out of the course I must admit I was a tad sceptical as your never quite sure what’s meant by we will need 4x4’s however I was soon to see what they meant as we set off with vehicles full of stuff up some steep grassy hills. We were soon into a very tight narrow woodland walk and I had to be careful threading the 130 around and we came across some very muddy bits in sheltered areas. It may all sound quite boring but we got to drive some paths no one normally gets to drive that were quite challenging, we spent several hrs setting up the route and then returned to race control to meet Bondy and Marie. There was no Esther she was sweeping the course in a hired Hilux, soon the phone rang Esther was stuck and needed a tow all four of us set back off up to the other end of the course with the 130 and a rope we arrived and found the Hilux let down by its road tyres.
We took a photo before any recovery work got under way and with in minutes we had the Hilux free and we returned Bondy to his 110 to head home for tea.
It was to be a different line up of LLRC members on Sunday in the shape of Iain & Jane, Carl & Liz, myself and Charlotte. We were supposed to meet at 8am in a lay-by on the A6 however as we left Tesco’s after dieseling up at 7.30am Carl text to say they were there and as we went through Hathern Iain was following us so we were on the M1 by 7.45 am and in Kedleston by 8.15am. We arrived and signed in and then put a brew on before the marshal briefing we were allocated marshal positions and other marshals to drop off on route. We were told over radios when the race started and it really was quite amazing to see the different people of all ages running to raise money for CRUK in memory of lots of loved ones. As soon as the back marker was through we were able to follow him around slowly collecting in everything we put out on Saturday. Again driving some good terrain it’s hard to believe but in setting up and taking down a 10k route I actually clocked up 21 miles off-road in the two days.
Once back at Race control we were thanked for our help and unloaded our vehicles we took some pics as well which are below. We all agreed after wards that it had been a very worthwhile day and we are all very keen to do it again next year possibly helping at a couple of other venues, It may not be Tixover or Sibbertoft mud plugging but this was off-roading for a very good cause!