|
A Saturday Marathon! Wedding cake ponies and the odd lake.. last Sunday I booked the 'madeyarun' Easter Marathon which is in Northampton, just of the A428. I went with serial marathon stalwart Rebecca Fleckney and we arrived at 8am, nice and early. I was calm, I was ready for this. Rebecca brought along wedding cake which I hoovered up pre race, what a brilliant pre race fuel! Conditions were blustery and threatening rain. The race is organised out of the hotel so we had ample parking and a conference room to ditch our luggage in, brill! The start was just behind the hotel, and there was an aid station in the car park. Perfect! It's nice to not have to carry things as you are always just a few miles from food and drink. Oooh it was wonderfully stocked, Jaffa cakes, midget gems, nuts sweet and coke... Brilliant. There were also free gels, cliff bars and a myriad of other goodies available. The race began, there must have been 100 of us, many from the 100marathon club. The first few mile felt a bit clunky, they always do but I concentrated on the scenery, we ran on path next to the main road for a bit and then went into a small green area with some trail, a little loop here and we were back up into open grassland by the lakes, it was pretty exposed here and I was glad of sleeves. The first lap was over pretty fast and I was feeling good, over four miles done and it seemed to pass quite quick, spurred on I didn't stop for a drink, just looped and began the second lap, deciding I would stop every two- my strategy was forming as I ran, my garmin was turned inwards, I wasn't interested in time. This was a mission between me and my head, all I wanted to do was complete it. Many positive thoughts flowed, 'six laps, you've done one, you are on the second, the next will be the third and that's half way already' part of the course meant you saw the lead runners, it was brilliant to see them tanking round and most waved and smiled. There were ponies walking about and we had to run round them, squirrels, robins and twitchers galore, even the odd crane. There were a few lakes, not sure how many, I kind of remember the wonky lamppost, the bench, the gat 'passed it four times only two to go' Soon I was on the last lap, it wasn't glorious if fast but it was mine, I felt good to the very last step/shuffle and managed an ok 4.13. We then hit the hotel bar and a pint of boddingtons went down very nicely thank you very much. A recommended marathon if you like laps and lakes and up that kind of thing. The medal was lovely and we got a box of maltesers too, sorry no pictures but they seem to have gone....👀 Happy running
|
