Stour Valley marathon

I’ve signed up for an ultra in July, and my training plan had an ‘adventure day’ in it, a run/walk of around five or six hours on similar terrain to the race to get used to being on my feet for a long time. I’d done one adventure day already around Leith Hill and it seemed a good idea to do the second in a new location. So a couple of weeks ago I did the Stour Valley marathon as a training run.

It was such a different experience to any of my other marathons. Absolutely no pressure to run all the way or aim for a specific time. In fact the plan was to walk for a good proportion of it so I didn’t tire my legs too much and recovery wouldn’t take too long. I did it with Mandy, my sister, and we spent most of the race together. It was a self-navigated race and I’d borrowed a friend’s Garmin which could display the route on it – a real life saver! The other option was to follow pages of directions written in a kind of code which would have taken ages to decipher.

I was really worried about the weather as it was over 30 degrees the day before the race. However on the day it was a few degrees cooler, and there was a good breeze which helped. It was in beautiful countryside, across lots of fields, past a river with paddleboarders, and mostly on trail. I told myself I would bail at six hours if I hadn’t reached the end, but actually ran/walked just over 28 miles in total in six and a half hours. And my legs felt fine the next day. Previous marathons have left me hobbling up or down stairs and have taken ages to recover from. This time I was running a couple of days later. It does feel strange to have done a marathon but for that not to be the end of my training. The ultra will be four miles longer and three times the elevation, but having run in Stour Valley I feel ready to give it a go.