NEMC Winter Wonder Ashington Woods marathon 2019

This is probably a very good thing to do after a marathon - a bit of mindfulness  colouring in McDonalds with a coffee. Not sure that the young boy who came along for some crayons and saw some of them were being used by adult was too impressed...

This was a free event for me because I had marshalled at the Winter Wonder Leazes Park event (marshalling also entitles you to free NEMC membership as well 😀). Ten laps of a route round Ashington Woods. It was very well marked and the marshalls were very encouraging. Drinks station and toilets at the end of each lap (2.6 miles). Pretty flat just a few gentle inclines. It was a sunny day, but windy and as the event was in woods this didn't affect us at all.

Just over 100 were registered for the event and as usual at these events some were doing 5 miles, 10miles, 20miles,  a marathon or just running as far as they could in 6 hours which was the time limit.

We adopted our usual plan for these events. Run everything in the first half and walk the inclines in the second half. Here is the first incline after the start (taken on lap 8 if you were wondering where everybody is)

Then a nice gentle downhill

Thanks to John Brennand for this photo on the approach to the lake

More woods

and then after a very short sharp climb running next to an old railway line

and then onwards to a more open section

followed by a slightly muddy section (which wasn't that muddy) I had trail shoes with minimal grip on and Melanie has road shoes and neither of us had any issues.

 Next the bridge which you get very familiar with

and then just before the final straight (thanks to Clare Stanton for this photo)

The long straight back to the finish which has two slight inclines.

These two photos were taken at the end of lap 8 by Paul Evans (who had already finished by then !). You might well conclude that one of us was feeling fresher than the other one...

 Back to the mindfulness colouring afterwards

Finishers collected a medal, a chocolate bar and a bag of crisps at the finish.