Newcastle Racecourse marathon 2013

We don't train for marathons, we just keep on doing them regularly and that avoids all the tedious (to us) building up of distance. So earlier in the year we looked around at what marathons were available within a reasonable distance in December. Not a lot. However there was one which was new and very local - the Newcastle Racecourse marathon (or half or 50k). It was organised by the North East marathon club which specialises in cheap marathons. The only downside was that it was on the ambulance road alongside the racecourse and the track is only about 1.5 miles, so that meant almost sixteen laps.

It turned out that this was some downside. A real mental challenge. I have done a track marathon so I thought this would be easy in comparison, but at the moment it felt a lot worse. It didn't help that the circuit wasn't as flat as I had hoped and there was quite a wind blowing. Neither Melanie nor I have done much mileage since our last marathon five weeks ago. We also haven't done much on tarmac.

So all in all we weren't well prepared and we paid for it. The first half we did with ease in about 2hr 5min which was fine. But in lap nine we started to walk one uphill stretch into the wind. In lap ten we took two walking breaks and that continued until the final lap when I had calf problems and I walked a bit more to ensure I didn't do any more damage. 4hr 38min overall

It was a grey day and at the start of lap fourteen it started to rain so we donned waterproofs for the last two laps.

The lap counters must have had a miserable day standing out there all day, many thanks to them. There were loads of people I knew doing all three events (all started at the same time from different start points) and it was great to see Fetchies I hadn't seen for quite a while.

Once we had entered this (another plus was that the cost was in the region of £10, a bargain for a marathon and you got a t shirt and a medal) another local marathon popped up. The Hardmoors Roseberry, which is next Sunday. We have entered, we couldn't miss that. It will be totally different, some really tough climbs in the first half and then across the moors towards Commondale. It should be fun if we can move our legs by then ! Our times will be considerably worse than today, but the scenery will be fantastic