Malvern Midsummer Marathon
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Unofficial Result |
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It was 2008 when I last
made it to the Malvern Midsummer. I really enjoyed it then and even signed
up for one of the intervening years but something got in the way of me
going so this weekend was my first return. For good measure I signed up
for the Cheltenham Challenge too just like last time. The countryside
around the Malverns is lovely, I think it is a part of the world that can
be easily overlooked. There was a mass start for runners and we all set
off at various walking paces as we were straight into the first climb to
the summit of Worcester Beacon. It was a warm day and I was glad I had the
Platypus water bladder because dehydration could have been a serious
problem. We progressed north along the summits before dropping down to the
flatter areas where we looped around to the southern end of the hills.
This has to be one of the LDWA's best events. The checkpoint at 13 miles
was a veritable buffet with pizza, quiche and a whole lot more. Then they
topped this at 20 miles with a selection of cakes in a large gazebo set up
in a field. I had to leave both quite quickly or I might never have left
at all. I wasn't surprised to see I had been out for 5 hours at around 20
miles but at no point had it felt like time was dragging by. We had a
couple more steep climbs as we hit the Malverns again that were quite
punishing and then we followed the ridge all the way back to the start. No
going around the side of any of them! I'd not had any thoughts of time but
with a couple of miles to go I picked up the pace to beat 7 hours. Then
with 400m to go as I turned down the last steep hill to the finish my
adductor cramped big time. I tried running sideways and even backwards in
a bid to keep moving but it was a couple of minutes before I managed to
get going again for a very painful finish! They clocked me in at 7 hours
exactly which is ok. Noel |