Marathon 33. 2 Laps of T'Owd Man the Pilot Event for Wirksworth Running Club next year..

Again another race day and that meant another hot sunny day. Its almost October and this was like a mid August sunny day. Wow. I knew bits of this course do to other runs in the vicinity but as a joined up route it was great. Good solid trail running with stunning views most of the way round. I was more than happy to head round again and enjoy them once more!

I set off early in the morning with Katie V whose making a great step back into running after time off for motherhood. I will let her pick up the story:

Having signed up for a half in Oxford the next weekend,I agreed to join Damo on a 10/11 mile run, as part of my training and to add on the miles before he attempted the stupidly hilly wirksworth half 'T'Owd Man' with my husband. Imagine my horror on discovering, during our traditional pie and cream pre race evening brief, that he thought it would be a great idea to do two laps of the very hilly course. Too late to back out, I agreed, being told it's only a 550m ascent (I had no idea how big or little that was)‎. 

7:30am in Wirksworth. 3hrs till the lap 2 deadline and official baby handover. 15 minutes of 'faffing' while I admire the beautiful valley we're parked in. (2:45 to deadline). 

Apparently in 'ultra running' circles it is classed as amateur to run up steep inclines. Why ruin your legs? Not a philosophy I will ever question. ‎I don't think Damo meant for it to be applied to any terrain that wasn't flat to slightly downhill. (I guess the purest whippets probably run, but I live and struggle by the 'Walk when you shouldn't be running, so you can run when you should be running!' motto. DT)

With my legs feeling 'fresh' we got to the top to be greeted by a lot of cows‎. I followed Damo's lead as he ran directly at them, seemed to do the trick. Further along, it was a little more nervy in the young bullock field, but we live to tell the tale. 

The middle section passed in a blur of stunning English country side going up, down, over styles and through ankle testing fields looking desperately for the next piece of red and white tape.

‎Having talked Damo into letting me skip the 'there and back' section, he caught me back up and found me walking (oops!) in my defence I hadn't seen any tape for a while and he had the map. On we plodded, Damo skipping around taking pictures, time check 1.15 to deadline (easy!).

All downhill from Middleton top, feeling the end was in sight, loving the clear blue sky.  Until we hit THE HILL after Carsington, not really steep or long in retrospect, but at mile 12; a killer. Even walking‎ was a challenge, I was energetically told to dig deep, 'it's all downhill after this'.That was a lie!! With 15 mins to deadline it was mostly downhill, the race was on....

‎We rolled into the cricket club 10:25. A sleeping baby, shower and a bacon sandwich awaited me. Bliss. 

Thank you very much KT for helping out and sharing a quality tranquil outing in the fine British Countryside. This is what every early morning run should be like. Oh, actually yeah apart from the cows. Mostly they were well behaved, but that crumpy one with the big horns that didn't move... Thats made me question my philosophy of cow management during running races! PS hope the legs recover well for next weekends slightly flatter half marathon 'Dan Saf'..

More to come on todays race from Big Ben soon....ish...

Marathon 32. Stanage Struggle. Not Once But 4 Times. Wow. Amazing!

Great, Great Day. One of the best runs of my life. Good hard running from the gun. Tight schedule to make the start of the race. 20 miles to complete and arrived with 2 minutes to go to pick up our numbers and get to the start line! Perfectly timed.. Thanks very much as always to Simon. Again legendary. More details to come..

Please Sponsor Me.. only 9 more marathons to go in 7 weeks!! Next event is the Stanage Struggle x 4 !!

I am raising money for the Burns Unit at Sheffield's Childrens Hospital where our son was 2 years ago. I need your help to reach my target and am running out of time. I am on course to complete my 40 marathon challenge in 34 weeks, 6 weeks ahead of schedule. I have a donation website set up HERE where you can a few more details on the challenge. In the meantime I am training to maintain some sort of blog as to how I get on in each run. I would also be grateful for a tweet on twitter or a shout out on facebook if you're a keen user of such things. Thank you very much!!

Marathon 31 was nice the nice local Chesterfield Marathon

So a good few months ago I had this done as somewhat of an A race. I don't often get to do a tarmac run and especially this close to home, so on the back of all the endurance work I have been doing I was looking for big things from this race. Unfortunately other life things crept in and a fair degree more stress than usual, a lack of sleep and a rubbish diet left me feeling heavy slow and tired before the gun had even gone.. 26.2 miles is a long way to go normally but crikey when ya feel like you're wearing lead boots its even more daunting. Mind you it was never going to be as bad as number 26!

Anyway on getting to the line good an early I noticed some sort of blue stripy worm about 50 yards away limbering up.. Anyway next I no he's standing next to me trying to shake my hand. It was only me old mate Dave, dressed up actually as a Smurf and raising money for Parkinsons UK. (Despite the fancy dress, he actually went on to smash it and won the half marathon by a country mile). Congrats Dave and hopefully we will bump into each other next spring down in London!

Back to today. Tough day but plodded along trying to get used to not having to look where my feet were going. I stopped regularly and had a few chats to the people in the water stations and some of the paramedics and even walked some of the hills towards the end and eventually finished in 3:27 which brought me home in 39th. Happy with that considering. But this afternoon since then the legs feel battered. I mean properly battered. Last weekend after the 57k Gritstone Grind, I felt fine, didn't stiffen up on the journey home and felt great over the next 36 hours or so. Amazing the difference other factors have on our physiology.. Not to be underestimated.

So review of the day. Great organisation. Awesome course and well marshalled. The start was early to ensure that the Town could be opened up again quickly. There will always be disorganised and disgruntled drivers you will whinge. But hey, the signage was good leading up to the day and the information on the website for drivers was great. If they choose to ignore the signs then so be it. I feel for some of the marshalls on the course who had obviously kindly volunteered their time to assist with the event but instead bore the brunt of the impatient and frustrated drivers. Well done chaps from remaining professional and helping out as best you can. On the whole the run through the suburbs was greatly supported and loads of people had come out to cheer us on or give us sweets or high 5's. There were some dark bits though and those were on the northern side around the trading estate which was pretty miserable and seemingly unending. Especially at a natural low point in the race as your physiology is changing. Tough. Very Tough.

Having said that any down sides of a road marathon around a town or city which is kind of inevitable was overshadowed by the fantastic land marks that were visited. OK so it is 'only' ChezVagas but I feel that the towns wonky spire can give any bell tower or church spire a run for its money. We even visited a nice water park on the way back in just before a MASSIVE hill or in actual fact series of hills. Fast Course... my arse.. Then to drop down past the fancy buildings and cross the bridge into the electric Queens Park was brilliant. Inspired last mile with the multi rings of the cricket pitch was great for spectators and runners alike. All in all a good day and great to complete 31 marathons in 27 weeks and vaguely in one piece. Did I say that my legs were battered!! Usually I quite like a gentle jog back to the car or a fast jog. This was a hobble, at best. But mind you I think I used all my energy by mile 3 today. That was my first rest point!!

Hopefully this week will be better than last and the legs will recover well ready for 4 laps of The Stanage Struggle. An event I have been looking forward to all year. Tough, stunning, starting from home. What more can you want.. Oh yeah assistance along the way. Ive got a few provisional helpers and one definite. Looking forward to it!!

Marathon 30 (well actually it was an Ultra) 57km of perfect gritstone trails. In fact it was the Gritstone Trail. But called the Gritstone Grind for this race.

Well another marathon again means another hot sunny day and again today didnt disappoint. This is a race I had earmarked from the year before and was looking forward to, firstly as a great trail run but secondly as a good challenge for the distance. The first thing to say is that this race is well organised, cheap as chips and well worth the mileage due to the spread laid on at the finish. If I had known that lot was waiting I think I would have stopped and taken less photos and run a bit quicker.

The second thing is that this is a point to point race the entire length of the Gritstone Trail, which means an early start to get to the finish in Disley and hop on a coach to head down to the start. I sat with a little group at the back and put the world to rights whilst the day got sunny and hot. We have a quick briefing by Richard the RD who had done a sterling job with taking into account all the errors people made from previous years to make sure people didn't go wrong.... well make it less likely anyway.

Then it was time to follow the blue sign down on to the side of the canal and start rather randomly just underneath the bridge to the carpark. The first couple of k's are bashed out on the side of a canal which was a nice warm up and opportunity to get into your stride. It was an early and relatively cold morning and I think with the prospect of running 57k had sparked off a touch of shock.

It took a long time to warm up. In fact I had to wait until we left the canal and started up the first climb. Anyway within about 200 yards of starting the first up hill the field was stringing out and I was following one guy in front. As we headed up, he stopped as he didn't know where he was going. I knew it was a right somewhere up here but had lost concentration as I was following him, I turned around to seek further guidance from others and was told 'Go Right, Go Right'. We continued along the early right for about half a k before we realised the error and turned round to find that about 20 had also followed us.. Well thats what you get for not paying attention.

Anyway back on course and up up up as the tarmac changed to muddy path and topped out on Mow Cow to run under the old folly that has hosted many a Methodist Sermons in the past. As we popped out into the sunshine it finally got nice and warm. Then came the long descent off the ridge, along the old Stoke to Congleton railway before heading over some fields on route to the shadow of the wonderfully named 'The Cloud' and the first check point. Great food laid on to keep the calories going in.

More to come.......

Marathon 29 - Ladybower Derwent and Howden Watershed

A fantastic Wife and a helpful Grandma let me go off and play this afternoon and complete this marathon. It was tough, really tough. You'll know what I mean if you've ever done it. But it was also stunning. I'll try and write more over the next couple of days. In the meantime here are some photos.