Owls Count

This past weekend I travelled down to Cornwall for the Duchy Marathon. My preparation for this race had been mixed. During January I did a decent amount of training, with some good long runs. The lack of running in February, however, meant that I had effectively had a five week taper. My plan was to start at around 4 hour pace and see how it went. The course is a mile out, two laps of a twelve mile loop, and one and a bit miles back in to the finish.

The first few miles were OK. They were slightly slower than planned, but I felt reasonable. I made sure I was not going too fast at the beginning. The first eight miles passed in 75 minutes.

At the eight mile point the course turned a sharp corner and we were then running into the wind for the next four and a half miles. Included in this part of the course was also a fair amount of the uphill. I slowed and went through halfway in about 2:10. I stopped for a quick chat with my mother and resupplied with energy gels.

I was back on the earlier part of the course now and out of the wind. I tried to pick the pace back up, but my legs were feeling heavy and the pace was just not there. The next seven miles went through in 79 minutes.

Then it was back into the wind again and from here it was just a case of getting to the finish. I had to walk most of the stretches into the wind – I was being blown backwards if I tried to run. The last part of the course took 85 minutes. I did manage a bit of a sprint into the finish!

Overall a time of 4:53:30, which is a PB by nearly 29 minutes.
The race organisation and marshalling was good. Afterwards we got a Cornish pasty, which I waited quite a while to eat. As the race HQ was a hotel, I was able to have a shower before heading for home.