On Saturday, I did the Maverick Cotswolds Ultra to celebrate being 60 this year. Obviously when I signed up I didn’t know it was going to be one of the hottest days of the year!
I had some coaching from Jenny Bushell again, which was excellent. From the start it was really different to running a road marathon. My long runs were measured in time rather than distance – 3 hours, 4 hours – and I practiced walking breaks every half hour to eat food. It included a couple of adventure days which were all about spending 5 or 6 hours on my feet and led to the Stour Valley marathon as a training run. And I needed to run on a similar terrain to the actual race which meant travelling to Richmond Park, Ashridge, Wendover Woods and Leith Hill to seek out hills and trails. My long runs ended up taking most of a day each week when I drive somewhere to run, so I was glad I’d reduced my hours at work and could have Fridays off. I lost three weeks of training back in May due to coming back from my cycling trip with a bad cold, but in the end that didn’t seem to make too much difference.
The race was really well organised with lots of concessions to the heat – an earlier start, more water on the course, water sprayers at the aid stations. The marshals were excellent – really kind and encouraging, I was glad I’d done Stour Valley as that was good preparation, but this course was over three times the elevation. The scenery was stunning and the course was really varied, from wide views over rolling hills to narrow paths overgrown with grass. It took me over eight hours, longer than I expected but the heat was energy sapping and I walked much more towards the end.
What did I learn? To run my own race; to be more vocal about what I need; that I can keep going longer than I thought; that a trail ultra is less painful than a disappointing road marathon; that running is emotional (I knew that already); that the wisdom of a good coach is invaluable when you’re facing something you’ve not done before.
Jonny rang me just after I had finished to see how it went and asked if I’d now got ultras out of my system. I don’t think so.
Run for your life 