Brathay Windermere marathon 2015

My ninth marathon here and eight years since my very first marathon which was at Brathay. I do love this event, although the route is far from easy with constant undulations and two big hills.

We started out for the Lakes very early on Saturday morning and did the Barrow parkrun. A new one for us and it turned out to be more hilly than we expected. We went a little too fast (my fault). Lovely park. We then watched the 10 marathons in 10 days runners go through Newby Bridge and Ambleside - they do the Windermere marathon course every day. We collected our race numbers and looked at the lovely view from the lawn, the weather was lovely on the Saturday

Melanie (her third marathon here) and I were a little nervous about the marathon as the last road marathon we did felt a long time ago - York last October. We have also not done much road training, so how would we do when trying to run most of a 26m route ? We decided that it would be nice to get under 5hr, but we thought we would be pretty close to that.

There were more Striders here this year than any other. It might be related to this event being in the Striders Grand Prix, but I think quite a few people just wanted to run it or do a race as a training run. The weather on the Sunday was overcast, dark and cold, not conditions I had encountered here before.This presented the usual 'What shall I wear' question. I went for a short sleeved top and my showerproof top. I was wearing my new Hoka Cliftons which I have only worn once before for the North Tyneside 10K. I felt great in them at that race and I loved them here as well - so light and great cushioning.

Not happy at being parked a 'long' way from the Hall...

We set off and found ourselves running at slightly less than 10 min/mile pace. A bit faster than we expected, but we thought we would see how long that lasted. Until at least halfway as it happened. Then we encountered the tricky third quarter undulations. That slowed us down a bit and we walked some of the uphills to try and preserve some energy for the last quarter. To my surprise I was feeling I had more energy than Melanie, which rarely happens. She told me to go on, but I wasn't confident that I could sustain the pace, so I played safe and took it easy in this section. When I finally did go on at about 18m, she caught me fairly quickly, so it seemed pointless and we ran together until 25m. I had earlier said that we could get under 4hr 30min and at 25m I was starting to struggle badly, so Melanie went on. As it turned out, we both made it with me 30sec behind her at the finish - 4hr 26min 50sec for me (and third in my age category !). Very unexpected.

It was great to see many other marathon runners I know and to see Foxy and Rents do the 10 marathons in 10 days event. Rents for the second time and Foxy for the sixth time, an amazing achievement !

Hardmoors White Horse marathon 2015

It has been a while since our last marathon, we didn't do one in April at all, which is unusual for us. However, we had been on holiday during that time and covered about 55 miles, so we thought that might keep us in some sort of form. We are now doubting that our training was good enough, because we found this marathon very hard. I completely ran out of energy towards the end and walked most of the last four miles which were an uphill drag. This has partly to do with just getting over a cold which lasted a few days last week.

The route looked stunningly attractive on all the photos that course markers put on Facebook. When we arrived it was just throwing it down with rain with a strong wind from the east. The views from Sutton Bank should have been fantastic, but visibility was very poor. The marshalls did an amazing job out there, it must have been grim standing around in that. We did the entire event in full waterproofs top and bottoms.

The route followed the Cleveland Way for a short while and then descended steeply to Gormire Lake. That descent was made a bit more hazardous as many of the leading runners missed the turn (I guess the tape had been removed) and came flying past very close. We were more sheltered round the lake but then we had an enormous climb back up again to the Cleveland Way where we met the full fury of the weather again. My calf also started to tweek on that climb which felt a bit ominous given it was so early in the race.

We followed the Cleveland Way past the first checkpoint at High Paradise farm and then onto the moors. We then had to turn east into the wind and the rain. We walked that stretch, but it wasn't long before we descended steeply and things calmed down a bit. From there we went up and down and went through some very muddy sections until shortly after the second checkpoint, Melanie had a big fall on to a hard surface. She had some pain at the time, but hoped it would get better, but she was feeling her knee for the rest of the race.

We reached Hawnby which was followed by a steep climb up Hawnby Hill and down the other side (yet another tricky descent) to checkpoint 3, which was just under halfway. Then yet another climb over the shoulder of another hill, another tricky descent and then a lovely downhill run across fields, before a 1:4 ascent up a road to a checkpoint where it was great to see our clubmate Denise who was marshalling there.

Then into a forest and private land, where the track turned into a mud bath. Again there was a tricky descent and a muddy ascent. We turned a corner on that ascent to see the track covered in debris left after tree felling. It was hard to believe that was the route, but tape was there and our Garmins seemed to indicate that was the right way.

The route levelled out a bit after this and we went past the lovely Rievaux Abbey which looked great with the clouds on the hills behind. Flip was marshalling there and he had saved us some jaffa cakes to eat

Then back on to the Cleveland Way and we reached the final checkpoint which was manned by our two clubmates Anita and Mark. It was great to see them before we started the drag upwards to the finish at Sutton Bank. We had sunshine in those last four miles and the views at the end were great, it was just sad we didn't get them at the start.

Great route and yes I would probably do it again. This event was also the first time I had done any serious distance in my new Scott Kinabalu Supertrac shoes. Their grip was excellent and the cushioning was good as well - I like to have cushioning in my running shoes.