This was my seventh race around Kielder and my second time at this event organised by Steve Cram. Like last year and as at the Sunderland marathon, it was well organised. The numbers of people participating seemed to have risen this year and I met a few who were doing their first marathon. The scenery on the course is great, but it is a hard event as the Lakeside Way, which the race follows, is continually up and down.
I was aware that my last marathon was almost two months ago and I have only run a 13m route since then, so the aim was to start at the back and just get round. I also have the Norfolk Coastal marathon in six days so I didn't want to do any damage.
Starting at the back was a good idea, the early narrow stretches were not as crowded as they were last year. I had decided to walk all the hills, even the one just after the start and that approach seemed to work well.
Last year I got to the dam at 17m and felt great, so I thought I speeded up and overtook lots of runners. Looking at the times later I realised I was just running at the same speed, it was just that other runners were slowing down because the relentless climbs had taken energy from their legs. This year I found the same thing happened and I was passing lots of people. It was all going very well until 3m from the end when my calf pinged alarmingly. I backed off immediately as I didn't want to do any damage and plodded the last miles. To my surprise my time of 4h 52min was about what I normally would do at Kielder, I was expecting something closer to 5hr 30min before the start.
Sue had a fantastic run and knocked many minutes off her previous run at Kielder. I think Bill was taking it relatively easy because of an injury. Andrew and Maggie also had good runs.
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