Chilly 10k 2019
The DB Max Chilly Duathlon and 10k take place early in the season at Castle Combe race circuit, a converted world war two airfield near Devizes in Wiltshire that’s been used for racing for nearly seventy years. On holiday with some friends, Stu and I decided that we’d get away with sneaking off for a quick run, but smuggling race bikes down for the duathlon would probably be pushing it a bit.
Having got up nice and early on the sunday morning, a short drive on major roads without any traffic brought us to the circuit. Ignore the first entrance which is signposted for the quarry entrance and take the second, labelled for competitors. Marshals parked us efficiently and within moments we’d registered-on-the-day and collected a prebooked race pack – no problems there for either method.
Changing rooms, bag drops, coffee vans and a circuit restaurant were all packed into the pits area. Even though there were a large block of toilets a healthy queue still formed fifteen minutes before the start, as there were around seven hundred runners taking part, from what I could see of genuinely all abilities.
Max the Monkey (I have no idea, but he was carrying a giant strawberry) was cavorting and high fiving competitors on the start line, and given the weather we were all pleased the race started at 10:00 on the button. One thing I’d never seen before was pairs of pacers for each five minute window, something that actually makes a lot of sense on many of levels.
I was hoping to follow the 55 minute pacers but as they took off from a fairly congested first couple of hundred meters (the second kilometer was completed in less than 5:10) my efforts to keep up with them early on put me firmly in damage control for the rest of the run.
The course itself is like all the other airfields I’ve run on – very flat (thirty something meters of elevation change over the 10k) and good tarmac but the open ground surrounding the track meant that there was a subtle but steady headwind for the third, sixth and ninth kilometre. Yes, that headwind was there at each point as it was a three lap race.
The support was excellent – surprisingly large numbers of spectators encouraging everyone onwards (admittedly mostly in the half of the circuit nearest the pits). There was also one of the longest water/jelly baby fuelling stations down the start/finish straight I think I’ve ever seen on a race. I could hear some of the pacers enthusiastically roaring on their runners at points in the circuit as well, which must have been encouraging.
Completing three laps on a race track isn’t as exciting as you imagine, sometimes with little to break up the run and take minds off the effort being produced, but soon enough we were peeling off the final corner into the pits. Darting under the (chip timed) finishing banner every runner receive a classy coloured medal, glass of water, giant jelly snake and somewhat bizarrely (if sweetly) a cup of chilli tomato soup. At this point I was still trying to recover my normal breathing so passed on the soup – it did smell good though.
In conclusion, a well managed and organised relatively large scale event that still managed to feel cosy and personal. I want to have a crack at the duathlon next time; I need to work out how to smuggle a bike down.
Details can be found here: https://www.dbmax.co.uk/races/