Run 94. The Sands Golf Course. 10/4/2020.
As many problems as the CoronaVirus is causing, there are a couple of small positives. For me it was the ability to run on the local golf course whilst it is closed. The downside was that the club had removed all markers which made it a bit hard to keep track of where I was at any time. My initial intent was to run on the paths but as soon as I started the path ran out. I had to double back and re-enter the course from a different direction and this time the path appeared to be more consistent. Until it ran out again.
The lack of signage meant that tee to green wasn’t too bad, except for the spongy fairways which clearly weren’t designed to run fast on. I doubt a sub one hour half marathon has ever been run on a golf fairway. But once I arrived at the greens (which I didn’t set foot on out of respect for the greenskeeper) the direction to the next tee wasn’t apparent.
I then tried to run from the green back towards the tee, but some bunkers are designed not to be seen coming from this direction and more than once I almost bunkered myself. Given most golf courses are around 6-7km long and given I had to finish the full 21.1km, I had the luxury of being able to duplicate, backtrack and loop around in an attempt to cover all 18 holes. My time of 1:47:24 felt a bit under par.
My Three Learnings
Golf courses are lovely but fairways too soft for fast running.
Bunkers are hard to see from some angles.
Some fairways look a bit the same so easy to get confused as to where you are.