A Journey of a 1000 miles starts with a single step

Clarendon Marathon - 2006

This was my first off road event after the Pembrokeshire Coast Path where I injured my leg.

As well as some low intensity, short runs at lunchtime at work, I had done one training run of about 15 miles the day before the Foxtrot 5 road race, and I was fairly happy that my ankle/leg would be OK.
What I didn't know was how I would feel after virtually no running training. I had done quite a few cycle rides, one of over 100 miles and I reckoned that would probably be sufficient for this. After all I would not be racing it.
I was quite supprised by the number of people who started this and the relay, which shared that same start time. The weather did not seem to have put people off. We had intermittent showers and wind, which fortunatley was blowing across the route most of the way, with only one section where we faced a headwind.
It was certainly an interesting course running from Winchester to Salisbury. There were some small hills but it was not as hilly as I was expecting. I was glad that I was wearing my Inov8 Flyrock trail shoes the conditions underfoot were slippery with the wet clay on chalk, but the Inov8's peformed very well and felt quite secure.
I was running with a friend who despite having some several Karrimor/Saunders type mountain marathons have never actually run a marathon. Pete actually got the pacing about right, if he had not been there I suspect that I may have gone off too fast.

Pete and I finishing the marathon

One day I might actually try to 'race' an off-road marathon just to see how I do.