April 24, 2018April 24, 2018 Mary2 Comments

More parkrun tourism and the new Chrome extension

This year has been a bit of a weird one when it comes to running and racing. Since starting weekend nightshifts last December I’ve had to turn all of my usual plans on their head.

It’s hard enough getting round for parkrun on a Saturday morning when you have a toddler, but when it comes on the back of a nine hour shift finishing at 7am…all I want to do is sleep!

Two weeks ago I wasn’t needed in work on the Friday night, as there were enough staff in already. So I headed over to the fairly new parkrun in Northampton – Sixfields Upton. The event started up just after Christmas and several of us have been holding back from going along too soon, so that the volunteer team weren’t rushed off their feet with large numbers of runners when the event was still in it’s early days.

The extra parkrun in town hasn’t seemed to affect numbers of runners at the Northampton Racecourse event though which still regularly hosts more than 500 runners on a Saturday morning.

Dan decided that he would also like to parkrun at Sixfields Upton as he wasn’t traveling back for a Wolves game that morning. We took Oscar along in his buggy and walked over for the start of the event where we met Laura. I’d worn road shoes as the parkrun website said that the event was held entirely on tracks and paths, but in actual fact it was incredibly boggy and muddy out there and I was a little upset that my super clean road shoes ended up covered in so much mud by the end of the event! It also caused a few problems when runners refusing to go through puddles stopped dead in front of Oscar’s buggy. It wasn’t just the occasional runner who stopped to daintily pick their way round the puddles so I had to really be on my toes. A handful of runners even leaped back almost into us as water splashed up towards them. I have no idea how I managed to not clip anybody with the front wheel of the buggy!!!

This was the state of my trainers and legs post run…(!)

It’s a very different event to the Northampton one, which is perfect. Nobody wants two very similar events right next to each other!

I think I’ll probably stick to the original Northampton parkrun course on weekends when I run with Oscar though, as it was a little nerve-wracking trying not to bump into anybody on route with the buggy.

Despite starting from the back of the pack we glided past Dan with nearly a mile to go. Oscar spotted Dan from way back and began shouting “Dadda!” in his direction. Although this changed to baa-ing at sheep as we passed them instead.

Sneakily, Dan saved just enough for a sprint finish and pipped the three of us on the finishing straight. We’ll beat him next time though!

Official time: 31:34
Position: 147/238
Gender position: 44/106
Age category position: 11/17

Oscar then enjoyed a good forty minutes of kicking a football around the car park before we headed home to enjoy the rest of the day.

I had booked off this last weekend from my nightshift job. Over the next few months I am also working as a coursework moderator for a GCSE exam board. (Who needs one part time job when you can fit three in alongside life as a full time Mum?!) As it will be my first year working as a moderator I was advised to attend a day-long course in Coventry before scripts for the 20 schools I’ve been assigned to start to come in for checking.

I was so excited to see that my course didn’t start until 10am on Saturday morning, and that the course location was less than 4 miles away from a parkrun I’d not run before! I WILL tick off some more parkrun tourism this year, despite having run all parkruns within an hour radius of my house now!

It was super hot on the morning and even though I’d brought along a towel and packet of wet wipes I decided (already sweltering by 8:15am!) that I was going to just jog around the parkrun at at a 10mm pace so as not to get too sweaty for my meeting which followed.

I ended up arriving super early (This really makes a change for me!) and so went for a lovely wander/explore of the park and off to find the toilets, which didn’t appear to be open. I wasn’t desperate, so figured I’d be fine for another hour until I arrived at my course location.

Coventry parkrun is fairly similar in size to my local event, Northampton, although set in a much larger park. Volunteers helpfully set out signs along the start lineup indicating where to stand in relation to the time you expected to finish in. As the briefing had overrun slightly, we ended up heading down to the start a little late and so I decided to run at 9mm pace instead, figuring that I was going to get sweaty no matter what…better to be on time to my training course if I could be! I ended up standing just behind the 28 minute board, although frustratingly heard two separate groups of runners declare that they would never run a 28 minute parkrun that day but at least they wouldn’t spend so much time weaving near the start if they started from that position. In actual fact, I spent the first mile overtaking other runners, despite running at the correct pace for a 28 minute time.

Interestingly I read somewhere that this year runners declared their goal time for Brighton Marathon during the expo, rather than when they initially signed up for the race, which was potentially a year earlier. This a great idea as it reduces the number of people overoptimistic (or underoptimistic) about their finishing times, already knowing how their training has gone for the race before finalising their goal.

The Coventry course is a really flat one with a tiny hill at the far end of the park, and a long, very gradual downhill which follows. It’s easy to get into a rhythm and the course never felt too busy, despite the overtaking at the start.

By the last mile I really needed a wee, and on scanning my barcode had to race off to the now-open toilets before rushing back to my car.

Official time: 28:40
Position: 331/675
Gender position: 62/273
Age category position: 30/83

Typically I then took a wrong turn when driving to the training course and then as I burst through the doors with two minutes to spare I was met by a rather unhelpful receptionist who not only couldn’t find me on the list because I’d stated ‘Computing’ instead of ‘ICT’, but proceeded to send me to the wrong room after I’d changed out of my running gear and having hurriedly wet wiped the sweat from my face! The course lecturer found me wandering the corridors ten minutes later looking for the correct room, blaming the receptionist for telling me the wrong location!
I had a very enjoyable day learning about how the coursework moderation system works. I do love learning and miss being in a classroom environment so often since finishing my last teaching position.

I’m working again this weekend and Dan is away on the Saturday but I’m already eyeing up my next spot of parkrun tourism for the following week. The parkrun Chrome Extension isn’t helping my addiction…!

I plan on writing about the Chrome extension in more detail at some point (I’m on the computer at my Dad’s house tonight) but it is just so addictive!

I am loving the @parkrunUK Chrome extension! pic.twitter.com/Ysl9FnR8FM

— Mary P (@ahealthiermoo) April 6, 2018

How many different parkrun events have you run?
Do you ever run before work/meetings?

The importance of stretching

Busy times

The inaugural Linford Wood parkrun

April 24, 2018April 24, 2018 Mary2 Comments

April 18, 2018 Mary2 Comments

Summer has finally arrived and changes to my race plans

The hundred miler I entered last year is now seven weeks away…Seven weeks!

But first, how absolutely lovely is it to finally have full on sunshine after so many weeks of doom and gloom and all that heavy snow in March?!

Oscar and I had a day out planned at a sand and water outdoor area a few miles away today but my car wouldn’t start this morning so I had to check it in at the garage – crushing our plans for the morning. Although we couldn’t make it to the water park we did still make time to get outside in the garden this morning where Oscar happily held my hand for a good twenty minutes whilst stirring various sticks through the weed in our garden pond!

We have big plans for our garden this year. When we bought our house three years ago we didn’t have a child, but our garden is definitely not one I would describe as child friendly at the moment. (See picture below.)

(Picture taken just before we moved in to the house – long before the garden became overgrown with weeds and the bushes grew out of control!)

Our pond definitely needs a cover on it now that Oscar is toddling around and we hope to remove the monkey puzzle tree which has grown out of control at the back of the garden, putting everything to the right of the path to grass for Oscar to play on. Wish me luck. It’s going to be a big job over the next few months whilst trying to keep a very active toddler busy!

Bella joined us outside earlier and rolled around in the sunny patches on the brickwork most of the morning!

I can’t wait to get some sunshine trail miles in and Dan has promised that when he gets home from work this evening the three of us can head out on a family run with Oscar in the running buggy.

Dan said that he would like to get some more running in the other week and now that the nights are lighter again as long as we head straight out as soon as he returns home from work (6:20pm-ish) we can fit 5-6 miles in before getting Oscar ready for bed. We went for our first family evening run together the week before I ran SDW50 and it was so nice to spend time together as a family whilst I was getting some miles in my legs. Oscar loves being out in the buggy with both of us and you can hear him constantly singing away and pointing things out that he can see along his ride!

I did have my alarm set for another 5am wakeup call this morning, but a late night last night and backlog of lack of sleep over the past six months meant that my miles this morning needed to be replaced by an extra hour of sleep, so snoozed my alarm and rolled over for another hour instead.

I have arranged to meet up with a few other ladies from the Run Mummy Run Facebook group for some early morning runs over the coming weeks and I’m hoping this will help to encourage me to get out for some of my miles first thing in the day. I much prefer running in the mornings and feel so much better for it for the rest of the day then. The poor weather and dark nights has meant that my early morning runs have been mainly on the treadmill this Winter, and there’s nothing more depressing than a solo treadmill run in a silent, dark house when you’re feeling tired! I’m looking forward to being able to chat running once more!

Dan has also promised that he will ask at work if he can adjust his hours for a Thursday – meaning that he will start and finish earlier, giving him time to get home and take over Oscar from me, allowing me to get out on a club run in time. I’ve really missed running with other club runners since Dan has been at this job and I would love to be able to get back out there again.

So, back at the end of last year when I sat down with my race calendar for 2018, achieving a marathon PB and completing a 100 mile ultra were the two big goals right at the very top of my list.

Fast forward a few months and I am now less than three weeks away from running the Milton Keynes Marathon and less than eight weeks away from the South Downs Way 100.

Following my performance at the SDW50 a fortnight ago I feel fully prepared for the 100. It was a real confidence boost that I achieved a time I hadn’t thought I was capable of, even though I didn’t actually ‘race’ the 50 event, slowing in places as I was concerned my calf injury might reappear. Touch wood, all being well, I am feeling fairly confident of completing the 100 at the start of June, provided no outsider issues ruin the day – heat, nutritional, etc. I’ve been talking tactics and times with some of the guys from my club who have finished the SDW100 in the past and every time it’s mentioned I can feel my excitement about the event continue to grow!

The marathon is a different ball game though.
Ultramarathons are all about tactics – getting your nutrition right and keeping moving, knowing which sections to walk and where to pick up the pace. Road marathons are a more pressured environment and can be time-driven. My continuous runs haven’t been very continuous and I haven’t completed as many longer runs as I would have liked throughout this training cycle. The plan I roughly put together for this training cycle was based very loosely on the Hanson’s Marathon Method and I am certain that this is a plan I would do well using when training solely for a marathon, – I just haven’t had the full opportunity to do so yet! Last year I ended up traveling back to Norfolk to visit my Mum several times during each week and this time round the plan could never have my full focus as the bigger goal has always been about running 100 miles.

I want a sub 4h 30m marathon this year, but I don’t think I will achieve that at Milton Keynes next month, and I don’t want to break myself by trying. I no longer plan on tapering for the marathon and instead plan to treat it as a long training run (with other people, and a shiny new medal!). I have been running strongly on my runs, and so, (with a current marathon PB I am aware doesn’t do my running justice) know that a new PB is perhaps possible even if I don’t ‘race’ the event as such. But if not, that’s OK too. My new target for the sub 4h 30m marathon is going to be a marathon at the end of September/start of October (still to decide which one) meaning I will be able to focus on solid training purely for the marathon over the Summer months when I won’t be persuaded to run other races (as it will be out of race season) and when I will be able to run outside rather than on the treadmill for the majority of my runs as it is already light by 6am in the mornings.

Have you changed your goal races for the season before?
Do you prefer Summer or Winter running?
How is your garden currently looking after such a rough Winter?

April 18, 2018 Mary2 Comments

April 16, 2018April 17, 2018 Mary4 Comments

A tightening for GFA London marathon times

I have serious marathon envy at the moment. April is the month of the year in terms of marathon running. It’s the when London hosts one of the six World Marathon Majors and everybody in the country becomes interested in running and marathons, whether they run themselves or not!

I’ve had so much fun tracking everybody’s marathon adventures online over the weekend at Brighton and Boston. So many amazing times being achieved! I’m not sure I can wait until May when my marathon rolls round!

Obviously there are so many other great marathon events to be enjoyed. It’s not all about London, despite what some people might think! I have heard the phrase “I’d run a marathon one day if I can run London.” so many times from non runners. I was lucky enough to gain a place in my running club VLM ballot and take part in the race in 2014 and really enjoyed my experience, much more than I ever expected to. I’m really glad I did get the opportunity to run London that year as I’m not sure if I will have another chance now that there have been so many changes made to the way runners gain a place for the event.

The most popular form of entry for seasoned runners is via Good For Age entry.

New times have been released today which runners must achieve in order to gain a ‘Good for Age’ (GFA) entry to the Virgin Money London Marathon in 2019.

London Marathon Good For Age (GFA) times 2019 (Image taken from the VMLM website)

The main changes appear to affect men wishing to qualify. As a senior male you would now need to run a marathon starting with a 2:xx:xx in order to take up a spot using this entry system. As a runner at a large running club, just six of our members ever have run a sub 3 hour marathon. Several of the age categories have also been split down further than in previous years. For example, a female falling into the Women Age 40-49 category would have had to achieve a sub 3:50 time in order to receive a guaranteed GFA place at London next weekend. This category has now been split between 40-44 (sub 3:50) and 45-49 (sub 3:53).

Another big change, probably even more noteworthy than the actual qualifying times is that achieving these times no longer guarantees you a spot at the London Marathon the following year. There are a maximum of 3,000 female GFA spots and 3,000 male GFA spots available for the 2019 event. If more than 6,000 runners apply for a GFA position, then ‘the qualifying time will be reduced evenly across the age group categories listed above until 3,000 runners of that gender are accepted’. Meaning that you may have worked super hard to achieve a 3:44 qualifying marathon time as a senior female runner, only for the goalposts to be moved after you have submitted your entry, due to high numbers of other runners also applying for a place and you may not actually end up with a race place at all.

Another change is that although as in previous years you will still be able to defer your GFA place by a year if unable to take your place up for the year you originally entered, you will most likely have to prove you are still capable of running a GFA time. The qualifying period moves to the January of the year before you run the race. So, for example – You run a marathon in a GFA time in December 2017, granting you a GFA place in April 2019. You wind up injured so defer your place, but the race you qualified at is no longer in the qualifying time period before London 2020, as this will become 1st January 2018 – 12th August 2019. You can keep your guaranteed deferred position, but only if you run another qualifying marathon time before August 2019.
I can see this rule hitting women much harder than men. I know several female runners who have qualified for a GFA position, but then deferred their place when they have fallen pregnant. It might then be potentially much harder for these women to bounce back quickly enough to prove still worthy of a GFA place.

Like last time changes were made to the entry requirements it seems these changes have come at the wrong time for many. Right in the thick of marathon season, when runners have set target times at races in order to achieve a GFA entry to London Marathon for 2019. Running 5-10 minutes faster than planned when you are talking about marathon times of just 3 hours is actually a huge difference and I imagine plenty of runners will blow up trying to achieve times they haven’t trained for, or hit their original targets which now fall short of gaining a guaranteed place in next year’s event.

Several runners may have already run their target Spring Marathon by this point and achieved what they thought to be a qualifying time, but now no longer is.

The VMLM website advises that due to the new changes, all hopeful runners of the event also make sure to enter into the general ballot when it opens at the end of the month, as unless they have run a marathon a large chunk under the qualifying time for their age category they will not be guaranteed a place for 2019.

It has been incredibly difficult to enter London Marathon via the general ballot in recent years. In 2015, the ballot system for the 2016 event changed. In previous years, the ballot for the following year opened a week after that year’s marathon had finished and remained open until 125,000 wannabe runners had entered their names into the metaphorical hat. In 2015 though, the lottery system changed and the ballot entry system remained open for five whole days, meaning that in total, twice as many (247,069) wannabes were in the hat ready for the draw to take place months later for even less places in the race. The VMLM website stated that this change was made to reflect the large number of people previously unable to enter due to ‘religious holidays, shift work, family commitments and other reasons’.

In total, there are 50,000 places issued for the race each year. (Apparently just 35,000 of this number make it to the start line on race day for one reason or another.)

This number accounts for ballot entries, the high number of charity entries, elites and the list of Good For Age (GFA) and Championship start runners. Basically, your chances of getting in through the ballot are very small indeed. Allegedly the quality of runners we have in the UK has increased substantially over recent years and so a few years back, the GFA guidelines were tightened and have now been tightened once more.

I won my 2014 place through my running club ballot. Every affiliated running club in the UK is issued a number of ballot places dependent upon the number of runners in their club. In the past, our club had always been allocated four places, but in 2015, despite membership numbers increasing, we were offered just three and this year we were down to 2 places.

The most common way to gain a place in the London Marathon has become via a charity place. I hope to run for a cancer charity in 2019 – a decision I made last year, long before all of these recent changes had been announced. Running for charity isn’t something that is accessible to all though. As a regular runner with a couple of jobs and a young family I know that I would struggle to find the additional time to fundraise alongside training on back-to-back years. I will need to be creative in my fundraising. Having run several ultramarathons (hopefully including also a 100 mile event by next year) people aren’t going to be so willing to dig into their pockets just to sponsor me to run the race.

So, there we have it. I’ve rambled on a lot about the Good For Age changes, but in all honesty they don’t really affect me a huge amount. The only hope I ever have of running a GFA place is if I am accidentally entered as a 65 year old. I might stand a chance then!

As it’s a long while until I turn 65 I’ll be checking out some other UK marathons to add to my bucket list for the next couple of years. Chester is currently sounding really appealing for the Autumn…

Have you run the London Marathon before?
What do you make of the new changes to entry for 2019?
If you have run a marathon before, which was your favourite?

April 16, 2018April 17, 2018 Mary4 Comments

April 11, 2018 Mary6 Comments

Falling back in love with ultra running

Over the past few months there have been times where I think I’m starting to fall out of love with running. In the early days, running was such an easy thing to do…throw on some running clothes, lace up my trainers, strap my watch to my wrist and just get out there. I really never appreciated just how easy running was back then. Now getting out on a run can become a military operation, planned weeks in advance for a run which might end up being cut short due to lack of sleep (Me) or the spotting of a park on route (Oscar) !

This Saturday, running the South Downs Way 50 reminded me of everything I love about running though, and everything I love about running ultra distances in particular.

I was always going to sign up for the SDW50 this year. The event had been my main running goal for 2017 – my comeback race from having a baby, booking the race was incentive to return to running and to hopefully feel more like ‘Me’ again once the baby had arrived, rather than just a ‘Mum’. It worked. I had a great race last year and, despite having to stop for 25 minutes on route to express(!) I continued to book races into my calendar, including the South Downs Way 100 for this year.

Knowing that the SDW100 was firmly booked in for June, it only made sense to enter the SDW50 again. Those 50 miles (give or take a couple) are the last 50 miles of the 100 mile race – and miles which I’ll likely be running in darkness next time round. Having refreshed my memory of the route this weekend I feel confident that I can navigate the miles again in nine weeks time in the dark along with the help of a strong headtorch!

I haven’t really been focusing on the SDW50 this year to be honest. I’ve actually been a little blase about it all, with my main focus as the 100, closely followed by Milton Keynes Marathon at the start of May where I hope to PB. I’ve run the 50 before, and know that I can complete the distance. However, I was a little on edge going in to this event as so many runners from my club of a similar speed to me would also be running the race, with six of them going for the Grand Slam of four Centurion 50 mile events across the year. Last year I didn’t feel pressured to run at anybody’s pace or to perform a certain way, but this year I worried that I would end up running with one of the other runners from my club or would stress myself into trying to keep up with them. I’m much slower over road races than all of the others who were there. Don’t get me wrong – I love chatting to other runners when out on the course, but I hate feeling like I need to keep up with somebody’s pace, or hang back with them when actually that section suits me really well and I can run easily along it. I race much better when I’m running on my own, even though I always find other runners to chat to along the way.

Friends Kev and Gary were crewing us all and so Kev arrived in his van outside my house to collect me a little before 4:30am on Saturday morning. I’d set my alarm for 3:30am that morning but definitely hit the snooze button after Oscar decided to wake for a (very unlike him) two hour party at 12:30am. Tip number one if you’re thinking about running an ultra…don’t live with a toddler!

After picking up another three runners along the way we arrived with the perfect amount of time before the start. Kit check, numbers on, loo trip, drink, snack, bags on and a walk to the start.

It was lovely to finally meet Lauren properly after having cheering her on at Milton Keynes Marathon a few years back and also to bump into Ally as well, who I also saw at the finish for a chat. Both ran amazing races in super fast times. Lauren is also running the 100 later on this year like me and Ally is running the next Centurion 50 mile event in a few week’s time – the North Downs Way.

There was time for a quick photo of our club runners before the off and then followed a gentle jog to the gap in the field, with a bottleneck! South Downs Way 50 WDAC lineup

I felt good from the get go and having started right at the back, the pace was easy. I didn’t rush to get past anyone, although I saw plenty of others jostling for positions.

(Screenshot of the bottleneck taken from a video shared on the Centurion Facebook group)

About a mile in I started to regret having a peanut butter smothered bagel as a snack less than an hour before the race start. I had eaten a bowl of porridge with blueberries when I first woke but knew I would need a top-up snack before the run, as I had already been up for so long that morning. Turns out, a bagel was not the snack I required and I needed a loo stop from early on, on a course when I knew there was barely any course coverage!

Other than the first couple of miles (when everyone was stuck behind other runners along narrow sections anyway), it is fairly easy going until the first checkpoint at mile 11. My strategy at checkpoints is to grab what food I need, have the lid of my water bottle unscrewed ready for topping up if needed and get in and out as quickly as possible. Why hang around when you could be moving?! It wastes time and means you end up getting stiff. At this first checkpoint I grabbed a couple of grapes and some cheese sandwiches before moving on. Fruit and cheese sandwiches are always winners for me during an event! I’d already eaten half of a cocoa orange nakd bar on the way to this checkpoint, and grabbed a carton of chocolate milk out of my bag as I made my way up the hill along the other side of the road.

I’m aware that these pictures don’t make the hill look too ‘hilly’, but trust me, it was! And, just like last year, the photographer was perched up at the top taking photographs!Another runner struck up conversation when he spotted I was wearing the event t-shirt from last year and I ran with him for a few miles until he told me he needed to slow down.
Mile 15 was our first crew ‘checkpoint’ and I felt slightly guilty for not stopping as I waved at Kev and Gary as they stood cheering me by. I passed two of the runners from my club here as they had stopped to top up on supplies from our crew. There was just one from my club ahead now, which really surprised me and I knew wouldn’t last. (Although I later surprised myself by coming in as 3rd runner of our 7).

Not long after this we headed slightly downhill through a small wooded section and I almost ran into the back of another runner who had squatted down on the path to pee!

Checkpoint two at mile 16 was in a slightly different location this year and I walked in, got some Tailwind, watermelon, more cheese sandwiches and made my way back out again in less than 30 seconds. Smooth going! I still felt good.

There were a couple of rather steep hills between checkpoints two and three at 26 miles. There were also several runnable sections too which I made sure to take advantage of. The course really suits me as it has rolling hills – dictating which sections to walk. I usually really struggle mentally and also with my consistency over long flat sections, but had no problems with these this time round, which I’m putting down to the large number of miles logged on my treadmill this Winter!

The third checkpoint was where I had stopped to express last year and this year, where I finally spotted a portaloo to use! I grabbed some chocolate chip cookies, MORE cheese sandwiches and watermelon, Tailwind and topped up my water. All in all I think I stopped for about 5 minutes here, but it was 5 minutes well spent.

I knew I was having a good race and used the climb following this aid station to check in with Dan. He hadn’t realised that he could track me online and so I let him know how to do this. He also let me know that ‘Oscar’ had sent me a good luck video earlier that morning. I had turned my internet off in order to save battery but after hanging up with Dan I quickly checked WhatsApp to find a lovely little video where Oscar waved madly at me, said “Sit down Mumma!” and then gave the camera a kiss! It definitely made me smile.

For the next aid station you have to cross over a set of railway tracks. Oh how I’m going to love all those steps at mile 84 of the 100 mile version of the race(!) I knew I needed more Tailwind here but couldn’t see any on display so asked one of the volunteers for some. She told me that I was lucky, and they had just a little left. Taking a few gulps from my bottle after being topped up I spluttered out that she could definitely make it go further by watering it down more…it was super strong!

I nicknamed the next section ‘Australia’ last year as the views, with the sun disappearing behind the hills reminded me of scenes I’ve only seen in programs about Australia. This year though, the sun was still high in the sky (albeit hidden behind clouds!)

It also definitely looked less Australia-like this year!The last two checkpoints follow in quick succession; starting with a lovely little pitstop in Alfriston at 41.6 miles with indoor seats to perch on for a few minutes. This checkpoint is quickly followed by the final checkpoint at Jevington just four miles later. It’s perched high up some steps alongside the road and I felt rather bad that I just called up the hill to thank the volunteers, continuing on my way rather than stopping in, but I didn’t need anything with only four miles to go and thought it better to keep moving at this point.

I strongly made the final climb up to the Trig point and started to make my way along the narrow, slippy path back down towards Eastbourne. The clouds were threatening to rain at this point, and we’d been very lucky with the weather until now. I had twice put on my jacket for the odd spitting shower but the temperature was fairly warm, and the rain never really stuck around. It had made the rocks on this section rather slippery though. This being the most technical section on the whole course. My hamstrings had a few spasms along this section and out loud I told my legs they needed to co-operate for just a little longer…pretty please!

In my head I had secretly hoped to run 25 minutes faster than my time last year (12h 06m). 25 minutes was the amount of time I had stopped to express so I thought it was probably fairly achievable for me to gain back those minutes in my finishing time this year. As I reached the bottom of the hill though and broke into a faster run I realised I would most likely go sub 11h 30m.

Running and maths never work and despite being just two miles from the finish now and having been out on the course for 10h 40m I was convinced I would have to run really fast to go sub 11h 30m. Mile 48 ticked by starting with a 12:xx and I realised that actually, I should probably be targeting 11:15 instead.

I still felt really good. No pains, no aches, I’d fuelled well, I was still running! In fact, other than road crossings and twice when I walked a handful of steps, I ran pretty much the whole of the last two miles, passing several other runners along the way and changing my target at the last minute to 11:10 – coming into the stadium to the most glorious sunset. It was honestly the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen and I really regret not asking somebody to take a photo of me in front of it after crossing the finish line. Unfortunately my official finisher photo, despite showing colour, definitely does not do the sky justice as the photographer was using a flash so that I was the focus of the photo.

I could not stop beaming as I ran around the track! I’d picked the pace up for the track finish, although definitely not enough to be considered a sprint finish!

As I turned the corner at the bottom of the stadium I noticed that opposite the gorgeous sunset, was a gigantic rainbow. What a lovely finish arch!

I took this shot a few minutes after I finished but I wish I had taken more pictures, and actually of something, rather than just randomly pointing in the direction of the sun!

Looking on the Centurion Running Community Facebook page yesterday, I found these two images which another runner had taken which give a much better impression of the view we finished to…

It tipped it down not long after I finished and I was glad to bump into Nic, who had finished about ten minutes ahead of me and who had the keys to Kev’s van so that I could grab some warm clothes. I took a quick picture with my medal in the fading light and queued up for my free sausage bap and hot drink, unsure of how long the other 4 runners from my club would take to come in.

Official time: 11h 7m 22s
Position: 277/353
Gender position: 52/81
Category (senior female) position: 21/35

I’ll stop talking about the SDW50 soon, I promise! But, for Medal Monday here’s the whopper of a medal I earnt running 50 miles of the South Downs on Saturday! It is pretty much the size of my face, and now I have two of them! 😁 . #ultramarathon #SDW50 #SouthDowns #MedalMonday #racebling #PB #50miles

A post shared by Mary (@ahealthiermoo) on Apr 9, 2018 at 2:13am PDT