Since NDW50 I've been completing one or two marathons a week with no real concern about time, just getting them done and enjoying things as much as possible despite the understandable deadness in my legs.
Shindig in the Shire was a beautiful stroll around the Shropshire Hills with one very testing climb on each of the two laps. I ran a great deal of this with all-round endurance machine Kate and was very satisfied with a sub six hour finish given the previous week's efforts.
Kent Roadrunner is a course on which I never seem to perform well, I approached this with my fail-safe run nine minutes walk one minute strategy but even that didn't assist my weary legs and I ended up basically just walking the final eight miles.
Viking Coastal double was definitely a weekend of two halves. There were quite a few from my running club attending and it's always nice to have a bit of friendly rivalry to add some interest. Day one was terrible for me, the legs just did not want to work properly and I was beset with stomach problems which necessitated a visit to public conveniences at the halfway point, all of which contributed to me finishing last of six in the Reading Roadrunners sub-race. On Day two I reverted to the trusted nine/one strategy and had my determined head on. There were two goals; first placed Reading Roadrunner and with a quicker time than yesterday's 'winner', Pete, who had finished in about 4:30. I reached halfway in 2:15 and then put in some effort to achieve both goals with a 2:07 second half, and in the process recorded my fastest time of the year.
Holly Challenge is a quirky event starting at Race Director Denzil's house and involving 32 laps of the undulating, uneven circular trail upon which his home is situated. In addition to the tricky underfoot conditions it rained consistently and there were many large puddles one of which covered the width of the trail. Combined with this I was beset with some knee and lower back issues which all served to make this a real grind, but a pleasing one to complete.
The hills and technical trails of Trail Marathon Wales were never going to allow anything other than a plod round in my current condition but the scenery proved a lovely distraction, as ever, and I got another one completed.
The Barrow Challenge offers half, full and ultra marathons over the course of ten days, I was 'only' doing the marathons on days three and four. The courses are self-navigated following printed instructions over a mixture of road and trail. An early navigation error cost me a bonus mile on day one and the familiar leg weariness made it more of a slog than I would normally hope. After the race I drove up to spend a lovely few hours with my daughter in Nottingham, before heading back to my hotel at Braintree for the night. Next morning I set my satnav expecting a journey time of about half an hour but was surprised to find it was double that. Some slightly faster driving than I was expecting for got me to the venue with about 20 minutes to spare and it was then more of the same, apart from the getting lost bit. The journey home gave me a driving distance of 550 miles for the weekend to go with the two marathons. It was only when recording the official results in my spreadsheet that I noticed my last three marathon finishes were all within eleven seconds of each other. Consistent if not much else!
Next up was a 30 mile ultra with Enigma running featuring eight laps of Caldecotte Lake, a course with which I have grown a little over-familiar following my travails at Quadzilla and Week at the Knees earlier this year. An added interest was the presence of Commonwealth Games marathon runner and British 100k record holder Steve Way at the race to prove fitness for the British ultra team after an injury. I hadn't focused on this event at all, turning up having forgotten a couple of provisions and not really fueled properly. The lack of focus told very early and during the third lap I knew I had had enough. I could have trudged round in the heat to finish in something well over six hours but just could not be bothered. The only thing that made me think twice was that my mum had come to see me run for the first time since my very first marathon in 2002 but I knew she would much rather me stop than push myself when it didn't really feel like something I wanted to do. So I pulled out with no guilt whatsoever, sat in the shade and had chat with mum, Mandy and two of my most admired endurance running friends Ellen (recovering from the 250 mile Thames Ring race) and Traviss (veteran of something like 35 100 mile races). These are two of the people who are inspiring me to go further once my 100 marathons are done and dusted.
23rd May 2015 Shindig in the Shire 5:51:31 #78
30th May 2015 Kent Roadrunner 5:22:17 #79
6th June 2015 Viking Coastal 5:04:26 #80
7th June 2015 Viking Coastal 4:22:09 #81
13th June 2015 Holly Challenge 5:14:30 #82
20th June 2015 Trail Marathon Wales 5:46:48 #83
27th June 2015 Great Barrow Challenge 5:46:37 #84
28th June 2015 Great Barrow Challenge 5:46:45 #85
5th July 2015 Enigma Ultra dnf
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