Ok – a few more notes on this, and hello Colin! Good to see you have found the site already (this is not the Colin of the 3PYR – all will become clear).

Some more info about the race. It was long (26.2 miles long), hilly and rather painful. The day did not start well – Eve had been up during the night. In fact I probably only got about 5 hours of sleep, and some of that was restless. Do you see the excuses starting already?

We were up ealt and drove down to Slindon where the race was going to start from. The race was 26.2 miles (a marathon no less) from Slindon to Petersfield, following the South Downs Way. The start point was attractive, a college with attractive grounds. The race started at 10am, and I have never been so close to teh start in all the races that I have done! Sadly the only way back.

It started downhill, then climbed  uphil, then down, then up, then down…..so that most of the race was spent on a slope. Somewhere about mile 8 I met up with Colin, a playgroudn designer from Milton Keynes. We were running a similar pace and as so often happens you pace each other, then start talking. Altogether its probably a good job we did as we kept each other goign from there on in. Halfway was done in 2 hours, as reasonable pace for this race, where the winner did 2:54, and second place was over 3 hours. Then somewhere around 15 miles, it started to really hurt.

Its an incidious pain, maybe its the knowledge that you are hurting, have done 15 miles, but still have more than 10 to go. No matter, at that moment, the doubts started to creep into your head. The next 5-6 miles are the long ones. You hate the race, and you hate the fact that everythinghurts. You questions your own motivations. To quote us:

“I have heard a lot of talk about the Marathon des Sables on this race”

“I’m never doing that, you’d have to be insane. And i am never doing this one again”

“Me neither”

SO you start doing the miles as mini-marathons, and make up little markers:

“After mile 16 you are into single figures”

“At mile 20 its just a 10k!” 

Then suddenly you are past 20, then 21, 22…..Marathon Euphoria!

“You gonna do it again next year?”

“I reckon so!”

Since mile 17 I don’t think that we had run a whole mile. We celebrated doing a whole hill, and cursed the fact that there were more. In fact we couldn’t believe that they could fit more hills into the course!

Then all of a sudden we were at teh end of the race, and sprinting, there are pics, towards the line! We had finally finished, in 4 hours, 52minutes. We were disappointed with the time, I think thats fair to say, but pleased to have finished.  It was a good race, but hard work. And I may well be there next year.

Colin: Thanks mate – that was excellent, and in no way did you spoil my training! And the pictures of us on the website (numbers 150 & 356) actually make us look athletic!

At the halfway point with Colin

At the start.