The run was widely advertised within our club and we had about 20 club members turn up to run from half to full marathon. Oddly we weren't the biggest club there as Northampton Road Runners had booked a coach full of places with several of their runners here to do their first marathon - possibly encouraged by the 7 hour cut off.
Part of the reason I like these events is they are so easy to get to for me, being only a 40 minute drive away. The new HUB athletics and football stadiums were open for parking which was only another minute's walk away from the usual car park and I had picked up my number in the Xcel Leisure Centre by 8:30. At 9:15 with nearly everyone arrived, we went out for the briefing and the now usual presentations of medals/certificates/T-shirts for people that have done the various marathon or half marathon challenges. Then, as a mark of respect and remembrance for Liam Whelan, a member of Barnes Runners and regular marathoner who had recently died, we walked in silence from the leisure centre to the start.
The start was packed with people trying to get their bags into the small tent/bag drop and this was a bit of a scrum, so I dropped my bag, got my Garmin fired up and stood near the start line. The start was a bit congested as people were funneled from the wide tarmac path on to the muddy wooded and narrow trail and some people chose to divert on road to run around the muddy section. I was fine with my Hoka Mafate semi-trail shoes, which had enough grip for the muddy parts.
After the mud, the usual concrete and mostly hard packed gravel with some cobbles by the recently refurbished Anglers pub, before tackling That Bloody Bridge for the first of 16 times.
The path west of the bridge seemed to have been relaid, but the gravel/clay wasn't dried out and had an odd texture like running on plasticine. Then past Walton Bridge to the turnaround point manned by a marshal with a road cone hat.
The return was where this type of run comes into its own as I went past all the other runners coming behind me to waves and cheers, which continued all day. A real lift to the spirits, especially when my right leg fell off!
I had been carrying a niggle for a few weeks, a tight calf and hamstring that hadn't stopped me training, but slowed me down at parkruns. I got to half way in a decent 2:05 and then the hamstring started to play up making it increasingly difficult to pick up my right leg. This slowed me right down and I thought there's no way I'm quitting this run, but let's not be stupid and cause a proper injury, so I slowed down and started looking for people to chat to while jog/walking. I was caught by clubmate Blanche on our 6th lap and ran in the last 2 miles of the lap at 9min/mile pace to help her get a sub 3:30 nearly 20 miles, then had to recover for a lap walking with another runner for lap 7 before deciding 8 laps was enough today and running in to just scrape a sub 5 hour time.
Then it was just a case of waiting for Leon and the rest of my club mates to arrive at the finish. Finishing 100 marathons was obviously an emotional experience for Leon, so it was a good thing he wasn't called on to make a speech for a few minutes while we waited for some more people to finish.
No comments:
Post a Comment