Sunrise to Sunset Ultra
 (31.8 miles - 37 laps)

27th December 2014

Report:

Ok so a misplaced sense of adventure and lots of encouragement from another Harrier led me to enter this event. It would be my first attempt at an ultra and I believed that if I trained, all would be well. The lure of running from 0820 until 1601, or until I dropped, was just too strong to resist. Unfortunately a long holiday at the start of December and a week long sickness tummy bug the week before kind of thwarted that amazing plan.

This event has many advantages, it was easy to get to, far but not too far. Furthermore it was small and quite niche with very few entries. This is something I like as if I was to hash it up, fewer people would see. It was very well run and extremely friendly with lots of goodies at the start/finish line. Finally, and this is a plus for me but maybe not for everyone, the laps are only 0.84 miles. That may sound awful but since this was my first attempt, knowing the start/finish line was always close was reassuring. If something went wrong, I wouldn't have far to go. At the end of the event, I got a box of maltesers and a medal. I only have one of those things left!

The reality. Strangely enough, the size of the laps didn't bother me. I didn't find it boring at all and I did 37 of them. What was a nightmare was the course, a steep incline just after the start followed by a steep decline, a very short flat section (very short!!) followed by another hill, a little less steep than the first and then a decline back to the start. 37 of those was agony and energy sapping. The steep decline was hard on the knees too. This is not an easy course. Finally, I chose to run it in my trail shoes as it was off road and wet out, it would have wrecked my road shoes but it was hard underfoot in some places making it uncomfortable at times.

Even though it snowed and rained on and off continually for the whole 7 hrs and 44 minutes and the course was tough and I ached something fierce afterwards, it was amazing and I would certainly recommend it to any newbie to long distance running. Everyone should embrace a challenge every now and then, enjoy.

Carrie