Clarendon Marathon

Two weeks on since my last marathon on the comeback trail, this is one that I booked relatively late on to make up for having to pull out of Endure 24. I obviously needed some cheering up and what better way than to pick one of the hardest marathons in the south of England as a replacement?

Clarendon Marathon is similar to the Farnham Pilgrim in that it is run mostly over hilly trails and is organised by local Rotary Clubs, in this case the Salisbury and Winchester branches.  It's a charity fundraising event and not a business venture, so it is very reasonably priced for what you get - loads of marshals, plenty of water and bananas, a medal and t-shirt. It follows the Clarendon Way over most of its route, starting at Laverstock to the north-east of Salisbury and finishing at the King's School just to the west of Winchester; you just miss out running through the city centres at each end.

Preparation for this event over the previous 2 weeks had been focussed on some gentle recovery runs in the first week and then some harder tempo runs of 3 to 6 miles in the second.  I'm still getting back to fitness and slowly getting there.  On the morning, I was up at 6:30 for breakfast and on the motorbike for the ride to Winchester by 7:30.  I arrived just after 8:15 at the park and ride car park near M3 Junction 11 and parked up next to a footpath at one side of the car park.  After stowing my bike kit in the panniers, I got my Hokas on and got on the waiting shuttle bus that would take us to Salisbury. I met Sandhurst Joggers' Patrick Wadsworth on the bus and we chatted about the route and the conditions.  The weather leading up to this race had been dry for more than a week and was misty and cold this morning with sunshine on the way.  Apart from being a little warm later on, perfect conditions with great views guaranteed.

Well organised registration

We arrived at the Wyverne College near Laverstock at 9:30 with an hour to go before the off.  The set up in the school gym was just the same as at our local Yateley 10k races, with the hall busy with people keeping warm and fixing their race numbers.  After a final go to the loos and storing our bags on the bus to be taken to the finish, we made our way to the start.  Patrick was going to be about an hour quicker then me so we said goodbye and good luck and got going at 10:30.

At the start with Patrick

We headed south for about a mile before picking up the Clarendon Way and then turned east onto our first trail section and first climb up past the ruins of Clarendon Palace.  Apart from a few noodley bits to add some distance, the route follows the Clarendon Way all the way.  It  is all undulating to hilly, mostly on trails and tracks with some quiet road sections, all of which were very well marshalled with the traffic held up for runners to cross roads safely.

It's always a good idea to have a little rest at the top
to appreciate the view

There were some excellent views up on the Downs and, although I was treating any significant gradient as a walk break, it was still very much worth it to pause and take in the sights.  This kind of marathon is never going to be a PB run, and even if you come back year after year, the weather and ground conditions can play a big part in your eventual time.

At the River Test near Houghton. It looked like a great place
for a cooling dip. One to come back to.

Even the valleys were interesting with classic little English villages and pretty river crossings, especially around the Test valley. Here, near Houghton, the river has come off of the chalk downs and flows over beds of sands and gravels and it was crystal clear.  My feet and calves were saying stop a while and go for a paddle, but I had family to meet at the end and couldn't linger.

On the way up Farley Mount at about 20 miles. Nobody I saw
was running up, it was really big.

Patrick had told me about a hill at about 19 miles and even though I hadn't bothered to look at the course profile, I was expecting something fairly big.  I wasn't disappointed. You come in to an aid station at 19.5 miles alongside a field and turn your back on the hill.  Then, having glugged some squash and with banana in hand you turn to face Farley Mount, a relentless mile of steep climb and by far the biggest hill on the course. After as brisk a walk up as I could manage, I said hello to the marshals at the summit and made my way slowly jogging along the crest and down slope to the next check point and final handover for the relay runners.  I thought about the placing of the marshals and realised that there had been a marshal or two on the summit of every climb and they all cheered us on up the last few metres of the hills.  Another nice touch.

For the last few miles I was struggling along feeling very tired.  I was encouraged to find that I had managed to run well for much further than the last marathon that I did, keeping my mile pacing quite consistently in the 10 or 11 minutes/mile range.  Throughout the run there had been mile markers placed with the number of miles to the finish and the last mile marker came with me hoping for a gentle downhill to the finish. No such luck, as there were two more little stings in the tail before turning to into the road down to King's School.

At the finish with Alfred. Both Alf and Elinor ran the last
200m to the finish line with me, which made it
a wonderful finish

At the school entrance, my wife Julia and children Alfred and Elinor were waiting for me and both the kids came running alongside the course cheering me on, and then ran with me up to the finish line.  They couldn't help turning it into a little race and sprinted the last 20m ahead of me, but I was very grateful for the family support. It was something I was looking forward to and really helped to spur me on over the last few miles.

After finishing, there were drinks, more bananas (Fyffes was a sponsor), a t-shirt and medal to collect.  They had run out of medium sized t-shirts, so I went for a small and that seems to fit alright.  The medal is quite small, as you can see, but this seems to be a bit of a theme for all my hardest marathons - it was the same for the Pilgrim and Richmond Park.  I got my post race recovery underway with a buffalo burger, left the rest of the family to their drive home and got changed before the bus ride back to the park and ride.

I finished this marathon in 5:15:09.  This was an improvement on the Pilgrim (5:23:48) on what I thought was a tougher course.  However, the Pilgrim has cake, biscuits and sweets at every aid station as well as water and squash, while Clarendon has only drinks for the first 12 miles, so I may have spent a bit longer eating on the Pilgrim. Still, this looks like another improvement in fitness with no further injuries.  The next race for me is Abingdon marathon in 2 weeks time where I need to finish inside 5 hours.