After no race last week I was really looking forward to this one. Two 25k laps of Ennerdale valley, not too much ascent and largely runnable underfoot, it should’ve been a lovely day out in the Lake District. It wasn’t.
The day didn’t start brilliantly. After my second night on the couch looking after the new puppy I was really tired. So tired that I slept through my alarm, and once one the way managed to take the wrong motorway exit twice before even getting out of Merseyside.
When I got closer to Ennerdale the main road in was closed, so I battled the satnav telling me to turn around for an extra 20 minutes, eventually arriving at the event start with about an hour to spare. Or so I thought. Turns out the postcode they gave out was for a school in the next town about three miles from the start. Fortunately I spotted another runner walking along the road, checked he was doing the race (he was) and that he knew where the start was (he did), and then gave him a lift. It’s just as well we bumped into each other, there’s no way I’d have found the start, or that he’d have made it in time walking from where I picked him up.
Fortunately I think a lot of other people got lost too, and despite being late we managed to bag the last parking space in the tiny car park. Just as well really as the next nearest other one was about 2.5km away. We went in to register, got our numbers and race t-shirt (generic to the race series, they only had Medium left, and ran out of them completely just after us with loads of people still to register).
It was one of those rare races these days where I didn’t know a single person at the start, apart from Mike they guy I’d given a lift to. The 50km runners went off at 1000, with the 25km runners who only had to do one loop setting off 15 minutes later.
Things sort of started ok. I fell into pace with a local guy who knew the route and we chatted for a bit, until around 10km when I started to feel a bit rough. I let him go on while I had a gel, and that was about the last time in the race that I didn’t want to die. For no obvious reason I was really struggling. It felt like I was bonking, but 10km into a race after a week’s rest it couldn’t have been that. I just kept feeling worse, going through the water station at about 12km I felt grim, and for the next 6-7km I had the added joy of having to stop every minute or so to let 25km runners through.
At about 18km it got pretty rough underfoot. I was trying to keep a half decent pace despite feeling crap, but I went over on my glass ankle twice in quick succession and pretty much hiked/scrambled the next couple of miles up and over Anglers Crag. I trudged miserably into the start/finish area where they made the 50k runners go right up to the finish line, turn around and run back out of the finish chute, which was weird. There wasn’t much going on there at what was the only real checkpoint in terms of food either.
By this point I was really struggling, my heart rate was spiking with the slightest effort and I just felt like shit. I ran a bit, walked a bit, swore a lot, and just generally wished it was over. Around 5k into lap 2 I decided to take my emergency 100mg caffeine gel, and at that point a lady Pam caught me up. We chatted a bit, and for the next few miles were taking turns passing each other. I think I was going a bit quicker up the hills and she was going quicker on the flat, but we met again the water station and pretty much ran the last quarter of the race together from there.
We somehow managed to grind out the last few miles, scramble over the crag again, and with a bit of effort we held off one lady who was threatening to catch Pam in the last few hundred metres. We finished together in 5:57 (only two hours longer than my last 50k lol), and clapped in about another six or seven runners who all of a sudden came in behind us. I had a couple of manky cheese and onion pastry things, looked around in to see if anyone was going to give me a medal (they didn’t), and then trudged off to get changed and start the 2.5 hour drive home.
I’m trying not to let how bad a day I had colour my opinion of the event, but to be honest, I wasn’t hugely impressed. On the plus side the route was really well marked, and using the scout camp as the start/finish meant somewhere warm and dry to get ready/changed afterwards which was cool. And it’s always nice to have a proper toilet. On the downside, it just felt a bit low-rent for the £35 entry fee. Now I’m not one to complain about how much races cost – this was my 37th or so this year and I think they’ve all ranged between £7-£90 or thereabouts, so this wasn’t expensive by any stretch. It’s just hard to see where they spent the money. One checkpoint at the start/finish, one water stop at half way, generic race tee for their series of about 10 races, a roll or two of barrier tape and whatever the mountain rescue guy on the crag and the medical staff were getting? The same route from the LDWA would’ve cost about £10, the food would have been better (and every 5km) and you’d have got a certificate.
Anyway, on the plus side I managed to grind out four hours of really unpleasant running which is good to have in the memory bank for when I’m struggling somewhere else. It’ll rarely get that bad again (fingers crossed). It was also marathon/ultra number 96, four more to go and I get my yellow and blue vest!
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Despite it being so close to home I’ve always found myself somewhere else on race day, so this was my first Chester Marathon. It was pretty cool, I’d heard it was well organised and a nice route, and it was both. It was bigger than I thought it would be though. I knew loads of people that were running, but didn’t see many of them at the start it as that busy. I caught up with Mike, James and Sarah from SWAC though, and saw Marc, Malc and Gary before we all went to line up on the race track.

Sarah was aiming for a sub 3:45 PB and GFA and I offered to pace/irritate her all the way around, so we set off with the 3:45 pace group, although we pulled a little way ahead of them early on. It was all pretty uneventful from that point in a weird way. The weather was nice, although it warmed up towards the end, the course was pretty flat with just a couple of short-ish hills, and for a long stretch in the middle we were just trotting nicely through the countryside. The route was a lot like the Preston Guild marathon, country roads, little villages, quite exposed but ok in the conditions.

We went through half way in about 1:50, and although Sarah was getting a little less chatty we were running nice even splits, and she seemed to be pacing it really well. I was mostly just sitting a smidge behind her so that we were running at her pace rather than mine for as much as possible, figuring if she started to slow down too much I’d push forward a bit and try to pick the pace up and pull her along. It wasn’t until around 22 miles that she showed any real signs of having to dig in, but even then although she was a bit less comfortable than earlier on, it wasn’t affecting her pace. I just ran along with her talking rubbish in the hope that it’d either take her mind of the running or annoy her so much she ran faster and got done quicker.

With a couple of miles to go we we’re comfortably on target, although I think Sarah was getting worried we were cutting it a bit fine, especially when with about 800m to go someone shouted out “five more minutes” which would’ve taken us over 3:45 if it’d been anywhere near right. As it was we finished about 2 minutes later, crossing the line in 3:42 and change, a big PB for Sarah, and a guaranteed place at London for 2017 and 2018.
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For me it was just awesome to see Sarah smash her PB, she was just so happy at the finish it was amazing! On a more personal level a super-steady 3:42 was probably just what I needed. I’ve got a weekend off next week before the Ennerdale 50k the week after and four marathons in a week after that, so running Chester at the pace I did should mean I’m straight out running again later today.

They should rename this race the “Robin Hood Marathon of Piss”. I’d forgotten how bad the queues for the toilets were last year, but they were a million times worse this year round. With 20 minutes to go to the start the queues were still miles long and people were just pissing everywhere. Then, after a delayed start, for the first couple of miles people were still pissing all over the place, queueing for portaloos at the water stops during the race or just going in the street.
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It was a real shame, because apart from them having one toilet for every thousand runners, it was a lovely race. I’d driven with Gill to the race and we decided to run together, take it easy, and aim for around 4:30. For the first few miles we were on that, but mainly due to toilet stops. At halfway we were closer to 4:15 pace, until we saw the 4:00 pacers coming towards us having doubled back a couple a mile ahead of us. Gill wanted to try and catch them so we cranked the pace up a bit for a few miles, and with about 5k to go we’d worked our way down to 4:30/kms. That pace after the slow start, combined with the fact we were passing a lot of people felt like we were flying, and we were pretty much going flat out for the last stretch, running the last 5k in 23 mins and coming in around 3:58. It’s a long time since I’d run a negative split like that, and I’d forgotten how much fun it was to finish that strong!

Same route as last year, and the same weird feeling of having the course dismantled around me as I went out for the second loop and the half marathon runners were finishing. Ran a decent negative split, and came in under 3:30 for the first time in a few weeks – nowhere near last year’s heroics, but tidy enough.

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