The 10 marathons on 10 days Windermere runners have to raise a lot of sponsorship money and one way some of them do it is to put on races. The organiser of these four marathons in four days has been doing it for a while now, he has done the last two 10 in 10 events and is doing the next 10 in 10 in May.
Apart from the organiser, there were some focussed runners doing these events. One is aiming to run across the USA, another is planning 60 marathons/ultras this year and another is running all four marathons dragging a tyre behind her. She was out there for 8 hours or more ! She is planning to run one hundred marthons/ultras with the tyre.....
I have done two back to back marathons before and I thought it would be a challenge to try three back to back. I couldn't do four as it was my Dad's 90th on the day of the fourth one.
I used shot blocks, Succeed S!caps and Asda Isotonic berry drink for fuelling. My Goodness Shakes powders for recovery (thanks for telling me about these Denise !) and I slept in compression socks after day 1 and day 2 and ran in them on day 3. They all seemed to work as I didn't get any cramp and I didn't seem to run out of energy.
Day 1
There was a choice of routes to run today - 7 and a bit laps of the lake or a lap and a bit round the lake, an out and back down the Grand Union canal followed by a three quarters lap of the lake.
I chose the latter as we have to do the laps tomorrow. My friend Liz was also doing the canal and wasn't sure of the route and I find it easier to run with someone else so we agreed to run together. We last ran together about ten days ago and in that time she has completed three ultras, she is amazing !
It seemed a fast start and we made it round the lake without any problems. The organiser had dome an excellent job of marking the course with flour, although I heard later that once wet, the geese found in an interesting meal.
I picked up my rucksack from the drinks station at the end of the first lap - the canal route was unsupported and we then moved to the canal towpath which was tarmacked all the way to the turn around point. It was interesting to see all the moored canal boats with their unusual names and the amazingly varied things stored on the roof.
We took it very easy in the rain, it either drizzled or steadily rained all day. Then it was back to the lake, round it in the other direction and to the finish. 5hr 44min. A bath, food and chat followed. It was good to put faces to some more people from Fetcheveryone.com
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