I could argue that my other club, Elvet Striders, had a big participation in this event. They formed 10% of the finishers and 20% of the helpers, but maybe I should also say there were 31 starters (one DNF) and 10 helpers
I drove up with fats and dizzie1981 who were using the event for their training for a bigger challenge in April. It would be the second marathon for both of them. The first one for both of them was London, in different years, and they were aware this event would be just a little different....
The biggest difference is the hills. Somebody told us the ascent was 3000ft and I measured it as 2828, but whatever it was, there were lots and lots of climbs, not big ones but just unrelenting. Its the fourth time I have run round Kielder, but its the first time I have done it clockwise and of course I found hills which I never realised existed running in the other direction ! We started in Kielder village at the head of the reservoir, so we would have the more difficult north side first.
The aim was to walk the hills and run everything else, but we didn't start to walk the hills until about 9m. This was after we had passed Flip who had cycled out along the route with a backpack full of water to set up the first drinks station. Considering he didn't get to bed until 3.30 that morning because of his duties as race day director at the Hardmoors 55, this was an amazing achievement ! The other Strider who was helping was acting as a cycling first aider and we kept seeing him as he kept an eye on us.
We reached the dam in good time, but all three of us felt a bit tired. We had picked up a few other runners at various points in the race and four of us were together as we ran into the drinks station to be greeted by members of fats's family who gave us all a mental boost
It drizzled for most of the day, dizzie said it had always rained when she comes here (so we are not allowing her to enter again
) and there were times when we were getting a bit chilly. Onwards on to the Bull Crag peninsula which never seems to end, to Leaplish which was the final drinks station. There was more mental boosting here as the fats family had driven round.I started to tire soon after we left Leaplish. This was probably due to four very long runs in just over two weeks. On Bull Crag we had picked up another runner, who turned out to be toonstroller and he ran with us to the end. The other three were in a better condition than me and I tried to get them to go on, but they wouldn't.
We all finished together in 4hr49min, which was a 50min !! pb for dizzie
Pictures: https://picasaweb.google.com/105792896882008304219/KielderWaterMarathon2011
A lovely event. The club is hosting three other marathons this year, Druridge Bay in May, Northumberland Coast in August (my favourite marathon) and the Newcastle Town in October. Not too be missed
No comments:
Post a Comment