Only seems like yesterday we were last in the Surrey Hills with Maverick Races for part of their night series at the end of the pandemic lockdowns in 2021 as life slowly started getting back to a new normal. Having moved this year to a new location it was with anticipation we arrived in the lovely village of Chilworth ready to take on the middle distance (11km).
Having extracted ourselves from the vehicle, harnessed and attached 2 very excitable hounds as dusk was setting in was time to go find the race registration with the sun setting to a clear sky which given the earlier rain was a relief.
The registration was well organised, friendly and well humoured and quickly numbers were allocated, marks were made on the attendance record and confirmation four legged friends were attending was complete. The race enclosure was quite tight, so we parked ourselves to one side ready for the race briefing, as we crept closer to the 5pm the start funnel begun to fill and we placed ourselves with a good crowd of other canicross attendees.
We stood and tried to listen to the race briefing in amongst a lot of dogs letting their owners know something was supposed to be happening though fortunately the briefing was also provided before the race via youtube so we were good to go!
We filtered out the starting pen and across the field heading into the wilds of the Surrey Hills, there was a small road section to arrive at the trailhead which is where there was an exceptional bottleneck where 300 runners, a fair pack of hounds waited patiently outside an unexpecting house to hit the first hill in the first ascent of the evening…This was not going to be quick nor the paths wide but slowly we filed our way up the single track.
There was no opportunity to pass here but the runners around us were friendly, dogs were suitably well behaved, and we arrive at the 1km point after about 13 mins once we had completed this the trails did start to open up and the trails widen.
Finding our stride, we negotiated narrow paths, wide sandy tracks, rocks, tree stumps and all the trappings of a challenging, technical run with the added excitement of a headtorch. During the race it occurred that the team at Maverick had mapped a course which somehow felt more up than down which could have been a tricked of the light or lack of it but undeterred we pressed on reaching a well-stocked aid station around the 5km mark.
Leaving food and water behind onwards we pushed to the top of the hills and turning back towards the finish line we started our descent, there were some more road sections here which were well marshalled though given the time and location traffic was light but was reassuring to know someone was watching your back. The race was well spread out by now having split into 3 different distances (5, 11, 22km) which meant slightly quicker splits but as PB’s were not going to be something of a feature this evening we pressed to the finish line.
I honestly have nothing but good things to say about the Maverick Races, they are always well organised the courses well laid out, exceptionally well marshalled and very Instagram friendly! The runners are a friendly bunch and for the best part dog friendly. This race is always a highlight of our Canicross season and while the location had changed the inherent fun had not. It was good to catch up with some familiar faces as well as running a new route we left happy with bling for both I and the hound.
Kudos to the winners in the various classes I’m still amazed at how fast people can propel themselves over this type of terrain the winning time for the middle distance was 00:49:12 which given the hills and terrain was blistering quick!
We will look forward to returning next year though we are signed up to do the Half Marathon with Maverick in the spring in Hampshire.
Time to get back to training.