With the Old Dominion 100 round the corner first weekend of June I've stepped up the training again. Over the last 4 weeks I've managed to push out 4 marathons as part of that and they couldn't have been more different from one another. I started with the Black Dog marathon on the Suffolk/ Norfolk border 4 weeks ago (see race report).
The following weekend I head up right into central England to a race called Valleys and Views. Actually it was actually just an organised event over marathon distance with checkpoints, no course markings and a lot of map reading. I got lost about 30 times and Im pretty sure I ran 30 plus miles in the end. After taking over an hour for the first '6' miles I stayed with a group of 4 others and we ran almost the entire distance together getting better at the navigation throughout. Between the 5 of us we had over 200 marathons so there was some experience there and the pace was easy but consistent. 4 hours 20 is exactly 30 minutes outside my previous worst time for the distance and given that we were running roughly 8 minute miles most of the way....Still excellent training and we were the first ones home in the race as a group of 4 in the end.
Number 3 was the Three Forts Marathon, 27.2 miles over the South Downs. Very tired at the beginning which was disappointing as I felt towards the middle of the race that I could have actually competed with the leaders if i'd been feeling good. Huge long grinding climbs and fast rocky descents on this one with an 8 mile out and back at the start where I went totally wrong and ran an extra km or so. Running through the last 4- 5 miles I twisted my foot & was in a lot of pain managing to move from 10th place to 17th. At the end I threw up on the line in front of the local mayor which was nice. 3 52.
The last one in this little series was Halstead in Essex where I paced for a friend of mine Pete running his first marathon. Good training exercise for me and although my foot was numb with every strike at the beginning, it eased off after 10 or so miles which was great. Pete, with 10 weeks training & nothing over 20 kept my 8 minute miles until the 21 mile marker but at the deciding point where we were either going to pick it up or drop off he hit a little wall of dehydration/ fatigue and we were forced to walk in what was becoming quite oppresive heat. Amazingly, however when I thought all hope was lost he started churning out the 8 minute mile pace again for the last 2. I was pretty amazed and also a little stiff from breaking into a walk at that stage but we scraped in under the 3 45 barrier, a great first effort from him.
So with those 4 behind me Im left with three weeks now to Old Dominion. The training has been ok and Im in pretty good shape and Im ready to tackle 100 miles again. Stood on the start line with nothing but pure running in front of me for 24 ish hours is something I think I may find myself doing over and over again the future I love it that much.
