The White Peak Marathon - My Bakers Marathozen

Well the weekend seems to have come around again quick and another Saturday means another marathon. This one is number 13 in my long list of 40 and is almost a third of the way through. Easy really. I have been looking forward to the warmer months as hopefully a great opportunity to run off road on some dry trails in some good sunshine and finally get the cold and damp out of my bones. Those eternal long dark nights now seem a distant memory with the headtorch firmly locked away in the cupboard awaiting autumn.

So hosting my 13th Marathon was Matlock AC a great friendly club based in the heart of the White Peak with boundless beautiful scenery all around. I have done a few of their events before and have found them to be well organised, efficient and friendly. My first encounter was doing the MARS triathlon way back in the day when all you had to do was finish the weeks work and then the whole weekend was spent playing at whatever you fancied. I am talking of course about the days before kids! And yes I know this blog kinda of gives the impression that not much has changed! I won it that year, despite having to stop mid way through the swim to get someone to move my illegally parked car and on climbing out of the pool at the end of the swim being a bit dizzy and promptly falling into the baby pool! Oops.

I have done one other event. The White Peak Marathon in 2012. I accompanied my cousin Sam round this beautiful course having also talked him into running the Eyam Half Marathon the next day. Whilst this was a superbly thought out idea, I forgot one thing... My training and rocked up having not run for 3 months. Despite this I was fairly confident mainly by the fact that we would be just jogging round the course and up until this point I had got through any sporting event on past training and former glories. Realistically, how hard could it be?

All went well and I was smoothly running as if I had trained for months, quite pleased with myself. However around the 11 mile mark you double back on yourself at Parsley Hey where you wave goodbye to the Tissington Trail and take up the High Peak Trail. I had stopped to kiss and say hello to my chief supporters, confidently ushering Sam on as I would catch up. It took me over a mile to catch him (I'm pretty sure he put in a burst although he's never admitted it) and with that I was KO'd. Bits started aching, cramping and spasming and it took a lot of stops, trigger pointing and stretching to get to the finish. He stay with me revelling in my agony and content to relax and save himself for the next day. We crawled over the finish line in 4 hours 23 minutes.

So keen to not repeat the same error as 2012 I decided to do some training this year and what better training than to complete 12 marathons in the preceding 9 weeks. Perfect! So the promised heatwave delivered and I had been excited all week with the coming weekend and if all went according to plan I would try and take an hour off my time from 2012. ie finish in under 3 hours 23 minutes hopefully a lot under!

Wow what a brutal marathon that was today. Firstly the walk to registration had me sweating and then being cooped up in the sweatbox of a coach waiting to leave the carpark for the drive up to the start in Thorpe meant we were mostly cooked. Despite this the run was initially unassumingly hot due to the trees, height and exposure with breeze relative to the valley registration. It was difficult not to get lured along by the magnet of others from the start and I found myself running gently up hill to the halfway point in 1 hour 34 minutes. Apart from a tight chest from a chest infection over the last 10 days I've been struggling to shake off, it was fairly comfortable. Then I realised I was chaffing in the old between the legs department. It zapped the speed out of me as I couldn't concentrate and I was starting to run like John Wayne. I stopped at 28k and asked someone from the ambulance at the checkpoint if he had any Vaseline. He didnt! So I ran on to 31k and at the next drinks station a kind chap sorted me out with a big old plaster for my left leg and some cream for the right. It took a k or so to get back into running after an extended stop then I was back on it. Well maybe not, despite the area being cleaned first the damned thing wasn't sticking. I stopped at 36k at the Middleton Top checkpoint and one of the guys had some gaffer tape, in bright orange, so I nicked a decent amount to loosely put round both my legs. That did the trick and I was back on it! Well maybe not, it worked well for the first few k's but then started catching on the other side. Damn it! Tape removed I cracked on, so close to the finish that it didn't really matter any more anyway and the plaster was sort of still in place. And that was it, running on to the finish and completion of number 13!

If you ever talk to anyone about this race one of the things that will be mentioned pretty early on in the conversation is the brutal series of ever harder downhills in the last 10k. My memory of this from 2 years ago did not do them justice, they were a lot harder steeper and longer than I recalled. If you've got the legs left at this point you could make up a serious amount of time and even more on your placing. Twice I have done this course and twice I haven't had the legs. I am not coming back to try a third time!

And so to the timings I hear you curiously ask. Well the provisional results are up already. Well done Matlock AC! According to the results I finished in a creditable 3 hours 33 minutes and with the heat, very happy. Having stopped the watch to cover my 'breaks' to sort out the chaffing, I recorded a run time of 3 hours 19 minutes. The two long stops probably giving me a bit of a rest also so if you add say 2 minutes each stop to my run time to cover this, it brings me out in.... guess what? 3 hours 23 minutes and exactly 1 hour ahead of my time from 2 years ago! With skills like this I should be an accountant! You get a finishing goodie bag of fruit, juice and water and biscuits which nicely gets you back to the car. Also a mug! The one on the right is my one from 2 years ago that I drank my coffee from this morning and the one on the left is my new one from this year. Its no medal but hey, medals are overrated and useless. A mug on the other hand...

Well I have tried to ensure that with each event comes a different experience. This one had certain elements I hope will remain unique as I don't want them repeated! Tomorrow I am running again and this time on 'The Leaden Boot Challenge' Off road and with an alleged near 6000 ft of ascent (actually more like 4400 ft) it is sure to be a tester! To be honest I think the ascents tomorrow will be fine as its the descents I'm not looking forward to. I am however looking forward to running it with Simon, he texted me this afternoon to ensure that the sting had been taken out of my legs before running with him. I think with the heat and the chest and anything else I can whinge about I will be happy just to be hanging on to his shirt tails. They've got good cakes at this one so am looking forward to stopping regularly and nailing the rocky road! Bring it on.....

Shoe Choice: Nike Icarus Stealths - Spot On!!
Stats. Distance: 42.2 km  Elevation: 0.43 km  Total Dist: 560.8 km  Total Elevation: 8.63 km