I was due to do the Poppyline 50 LDWA event on the 25th of February but due to some last minute family issues i had to record a DNS and bin the race.
it’s shame as I really could do with the extra miles under my belt.
So I did the Cambridge boundary run Marathon on Sunday the 4th of March as a fellow club member had a number going spare. I would treat it as a long training run and run with a pack, Sue my partner was going to run the half as well. We arrived in plenty of time with it being very windy and a bit of light rain. The manager of the David Lloyd centre we parked in was a bit snotty about us parking in the car park and we gave him a few choice words in reply. We later moved the car a bit further away after giving him a bit more grief, the race started in that car park last year and I think it was a bit of upset that the race now started in the Holiday Inn next door as they had better facilities.
It was really nice to see some faces I had not seen for a bit like Audrey and Anna Finn from Fetch. Anna has been unwell recently and it was really good to see her again out at a race. Anna managed to persuade Sue to run/walk the whole marathon for company.
We started off in a very light rain and I had set a target for myself of about 4 hours as a good pace with my rucksack on and I need to get used to pushing myself a bit when I have some very tough races coming up.
There was a lot of bottlenecks at he beginning and the route was very twisty and tight in places with lots of roads to cross so I just tried to keep up a steady pace and keep on target. I had not brought my garmin with me so was just running it on feel.
I happily chatted to various runners on the way round and although it was starting to rain a bit more I was still warm enough and plodding away happily chatting and discussing races etc with anyone who would listen.
I got to half way in about 1:50ish and even though it was getting wetter.
I plodded on trying to keep a steady pace and the weather was turning a bit for the worse with some hail and driving rain which meant I was soaked through in no time and although I was just about keeping warm by moving it was getting chilly.
The route was getting difficult to follow as some of the signs had fallen off and the chalked marks on the road were being washed away but i managed to guess correctly the way and some others followed which is lucky as I did not want to get anyone lost.
I rolled across the line in 4:10:52 and was quickly getting cold so got changed and warmed up as I waited to Sue and Anna to finish. They came in about 5:25ish and all was good.
A nice cheap race with a slightly complicated route but well worth the £12 for a training race.
Hardmoors 55 in a couple of weeks as my last big training run before Viking Way.