I had originally booked this as my next challenge after the ten in ten. I had looked at a step up in distance and thought 100 miles would be too much (I ended up doing 100 miles a few weeks ago) A lot of people had said would I still bother with the 50 miler now that it would be a breeze being as I had done 100 miles. Of course I would still do the 50 miles and I knew it wouldn’t be a breeze. My feet are still a little battered from 100 miles so Louise had taped them the night before
This ended up working well I have only one small blister afterwards and it was just below where the tape was so this definitely works for me.
It was an early set off as the race started at 8am and on arrival it was thick fog. I collected my number and set up our picnic feast. I had run with Zoe a couple of weeks ago and we worked well together with similar pace and it’s always nice to run with someone else so after a few messages we decided to start off this event together and also share some food and a table.
The feast
Hayley who was staying in same hotel as Zoe also joined us and all 3 of us started off together. I was nervous but I knew I had 50 miles in me, this was a hard cut off 12 hours as the park shuts at 8pm so you had to of finished by 8pm grab your bits and get out before they locked anyone in. With this in mind we set off quite quickly and figured some time in the bank was a good idea. We ran continually for few laps (each lap was 2 miles so we had 25 laps to do having a card punched each lap)
after a while we decided to do walk run strategy as with these longer distances it get very hard to keep running entirely (although a few do manage it) there were one way markers on the track and arrows so we decided to run from one way sign to the next arrow and then walk one. This worked very well and kept us on good pace. Infact having checked my garmin we done marathon distance in 5:20 which gave us a nice cushion for second half.
We carried on at quite a good pace and the miles were ticking away, the toilets were a bit of a trek of the track so the ladies only made two stops I made one along with a tree stop ;-). We ate well to keep energy going although it was quite hot (infact I have got sunburn panda eyes) so some of the food was a little knackered towards the end.
There was also a marathon distance option and a 12 hour challenge and there was one guy who I will be very interested to see how far he managed as he was powering round constant running pace the entire event very impressive. Chris Chandler completed his 100th marathon today and Adrian Thomas finished his 52 marathons in 52 weeks and it was also Zoe flake marathon her 99th albeit 50 miles :-).
On the ladies 2nd toilet stop I kept going although I walked most of that lap and they eventually caught me up. Zoe had started playing some music on her phone which was good although where she got the energy to dance and jump around I will never know.
Hayley was suffering with her IT band and my feet were just very sore I could still run but it was hurting so with two laps to go Zoe pulled away and me and Hayley ended up marching the last 4 miles Home. It was around 11:40 so 20 mins to spare but I and also the ladies had made it 51 miles so pretty pleased with that. There was an older guy behind and he didn’t think he would make the cut off quite gutted for him as I watched him finish in around 11:50 he managed 48 miles but didn’t have enough time to go out on last lap but he still gets classed as a 12 hour finisher and gets medal etc just unfortunately didn’t get the 50 mile medal.
I had picked up one of Adrian’s cool cakes before the end
So cool and it tasted amazing.
Well done to everyone who got round today it was a strange one cold to start then very hot then cold again. I am pleased to have finished another challenge and looking forward to many more
ianprunning 