Isolated incident

07.09.2014
Day 150
Bone weary and eating mindlessly


Ultra running has never appealed to me, which is why yesterday's 29-mile debacle doesn't make me feel particularly proud, just extra knackered and a little bit cross with  myself.

It started well. I realised very soon after the running race started, with just 16 contestants, that I was not going to be able to stay with the Welsh fell-running woman I had set off with, at 8.15 minute miles. I left her to it and stayed with Jake, a young man whose fitness had developed from playing football and who had, he said run a 1:35 half marathon.

At mile 9 or so Jake said he'd be walking the hills, so I ran alone up them, keeping an eye on the orange waymarkers:

or so I thought. Shortly after climbing over a stile and refusing refreshments from a marshal's post, I followed an orange arrow into a ploughed field, circuited it, then went round the field after that, but saw no more waymarkers. Panicked, I made my way to the nearest farm to ask directions, tried to ring Alzheimers, but to no avail.

Reaching a lane, I flagged down a car, whose driver knew about the race, and directed me to where she thought there'd be a refreshment post, in the shadow of this white horse:

tbc
The upshot was, I went three miles out of my way, had a major sense of humour failure, almost dehydrated (suffered that ear-ring precursor to total blackout that I've had before), so had to walk a way, before I begged some water off a man standing by his Landrover.
In fact I completed the 26.1 miles in 4:22, so that's a good time for a trail marathon, at least faster than I did the Farnham Pilgrim, back in 2011.