On Thursday 1 February, the Beaver Challenge (not to be confused with the Belvoir Challenge) took place at Ryton Pools Country Park, near Coventry. This is one of many 6 hour timed, lap format events which is organised by Big Bear Events, all of which are named after an animal. They organise races on weekdays which is unusual, but it is understood that the majority, if not all, of their events take place midweek to suit those people who cannot run at weekends.
Despite it being fairly chilly when the race started at 9am, temperatures were soon ideal for running. In addition, the course is run on compacted trails so conditions underfoot were good as well. The course starts from the visitor centre and gently undulates its way around the park, almost back to the start area but then turns away back into the park, rejoining the trail which you ran out on and heading back the way you came. Each lap is 3.3 miles, so 8 need to be completed if you want to run a Marathon.
In a quest to use up his annual leave, Dan Ashcroft was unsurprisingly the only MAC to take part in the event, completing 8 laps in 3 hours 51 minutes.
