The Northampton Running Festival combined a 10k, a half marathon and a  marathon over at Delapre Abbey in Northampton. I had a vague idea of the marathon being 17 laps around a lake (it turned out to be 12) but beyond that I had no idea what to expect. I was sure it would be good though because all of the Go Beyond Ultra events always are. I'd thrown the road shoes in the car with a similar lack of thought and while chatting to friends I realised it would certainly all be on grass and wet grass at that. A fair number of the people that ran the Clanger the day before were there and one or two of them had run on Friday too. My kind of crowd!! It was good to see Ian Sturgess there as well doing the 10k. The course turned out to be quite like a cross country course. It was essentially flat but there was a definite incline from the Abbey down to the lake and a couple of dry and not too deep ditches for want of a better description so it wasn't an easy course. I started off on the proffered jelly babies each lap before I spotted the cake on the table which took over as my main nutrition. On the 9th lap I passed by the water and cake which proved to be a mistake as I hit "the wall" straight after. You would have thought I'd have learnt by now wouldn't you? More cake, water, and the prospect of only 2 more laps got me going again but I did struggle for that lap. Great support by the marshalls. Final time was 4 hours 14 minutes and 42 seconds.

Noel

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