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Pam Storey writes:
When I received
an e mail from my chum Christian Hottas from Hamburg last summer
inviting me to an indoor 24 hour race in Aarhus (pronounced AAHOOS)
Denmark, I couldn’t resist the offer, especially as it would be my first
indoor event. We were to motor up from Hamburg and, as I had never been
to Scandinavia I looked forward to the trip. Murphys law that even
though I live 5 miles from Gatwick, I needed to fly from Heathrow to
Hamburg but the journey went well.
I met Christian,
a doctor and sports injury specialist, at his clinic then we drove to
meet his friend Torsten who had offered to drive us to Aarhus. It was
about a 3 hour drive and we were to stay in the clubhouse of the
organising club, known as Aarhus 1900. The NRGI Arena where the race was
to take place is just a short walk from the clubhouse. After meeting
other runners and having something to eat and drink we found our ‘bed
spaces’ and put our mats and sleeping bags down to get a good nights
sleep. Men and women shared the rooms but, fortunately there were only
half a dozen in my room and I was not disturbed by any snoring!
Next morning
after breakfast we made our way to the arena for our race which started
at 10-00am. We collected our numbers which contained a ‘wire’ for lap
recording purposes. If I had checked the website carefully I would have
seen a picture of the circuit we were to run on but, I didn’t and
assumed it would be an indoor 250m track. Wrong! You will see from the
photograph that we were actually running round the circular outer foyer
of the arena on a very hard floor but it was 250 metres round. I was
hoping for something over 75 miles so had to be careful with the pace
taking walking breaks periodically from the start.
We set off on
time and a quarter of an hour later a Marathon started running along
side us, the other side of a taped off area.
On the way round
there were toilets, a well stocked food and drinks table and an area
where we could put our mats if we needed a break. Some runners had their
own tables and I shared with a runner from Norway, Bjorn Hytjanstorp,
that I had met twice at Tooting Bec. He was looking after a couple of
runners as he is no longer doing 24 hour races and offered to look after
me and mix some drinks etc. He was a great help.
Very soon we
settled into a steady pace but I was finding the floor a bit hard and,
we did not turn until 6 hours had been completed. In the U.K. I have
always turned after 4 hours so I found it quite hard on my right leg.
The support from the organisers was second to none and everyone spoke
English so I was able to chat (as I do).
The ‘leader
board’was projected on to a white wall at one corner of the circuit so
we were able to check our positions on the way round. There were 62
competitors in the 24 hour race.
By the time we
turned I had been reduced to a fast walk with a little jogging but felt
o.k. and I was enjoying the atmosphere and camaraderie that you get in
these events. By this time most of the Marathon runners had finished and
were going home.
At 10-00 pm a
smaller group of runners arrived to run for 12 hours on the circuit that
had been used for the Marathon. Each ‘track’ was only just wide enough
for runners to pass so if you wanted to chat to anyone you had to move
over to let the faster runners get past. It did not seem to be a
problem, we all knew about ‘race etiquette’!
During the night
and early hours I had three half hour breaks for a sleep but, apart from
that and the usual pit stops, and food breaks I stayed on track the
whole time.
On the whole I
enjoyed the experience and at the end I found a Union Jack flag which I
carried round for the last couple of laps, running of course!
The winner, Per
Broling ran 134.44 miles, first lady Sharon Broadwell 117.49
miles and me 68.38 miles. I was a bit disappointed with my final total
but I had a great weekend and made some new chums while I was there.
After a couple of
hours rest we motored back to Hamburg and I flew home the following day.
That was my 14th 24 hour race completed and, possibly my
last.
A few days later
I developed an injury on my right thigh and my therapist said it was
probably caused by running in the same direction for 6 hours on a hard
surface.As I write this at the beginning of March it is still sore when
I run so I will be very careful in future.
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