Pitsford Marathon and a Silly Little Parkrun

It's been a fun running weekend. It all kicked off with a great Cambridge Parkrun event. Heidi Uff was stepping down as the event director, having fulfilled that roll since the inception of the event on 30 January 2010. Her husband, John, has also very much been involved with the running of the event over the previous 4 years. I don’t know where the idea came from but a plan was hatched for people to come to the Parkrun as either Heidi or John. Heidi (usually) has red hair and John generally sports a Mohican and has tattoos the length of both arms. Many people had decided to wear vivid red wigs, but there were a few Mohicans and tattoo sleeves on display. I couldn’t get my hands on tattoo sleeves but had managed to find a full tattoo body stocking shirt. It must have been a very strange, if not disturbing, event for any first time parkrunners.

Heidi and John (or Tony and Alan?)

Before we were allowed to run there was a presentation to both Heidi and John. Heidi had obviously realized that something was afoot and had died her hair blonde for the event. After a few speeches and rounds of applause we were directed to the start line, where normally service resumed. Once everyone had finished the run there was copious amounts of free cake and Champaign. It was definitely a fun start to the weekend.

The real Heidi (without red hair) and John

What do you call a large gathering of Heidi's?

Today I ran my fifth marathon of the year around Pitsford Reservoir in Northamptonshire. The weather was fantastic, but I still heard a few people complaining about it either being a little too hot or a bit too windy. I thought runners were supposed to be an optimistic bunch of people. Just goes to prove you can’t please everyone.

A selfie at the start of the Pitsford Marathon

My client, Robert, was also running the marathon as his first ever attempt at 26.2 miles. I also met a few familiar marathon runners at the start, all of whom I knew from the Extreme Energy multi day events.

Robert all ready for his first marathon

The marathon route was four laps of the reservoir. Not my favourite type of run, but the reservoir itself is very picturesque and it would be hard to pick out any point of the course and say it wasn’t scenic. The wind did seem to pick up on every successive lap. Each lap was about 6.5 miles and we had the wind on our backs for the first half of each lap and then in our faces for the second half, which also seemed to be the hilliest section.

One of the few flat sections of the course - across the dam wall

I started way to fast and ran the first 3 miles with another runner. Just before the 3 mile point we decided to introduce ourselves and then quizzed each other about our marathon history. My fellow runner was Matt with a marathon PB of 2 hours 44 minutes, a good 10 minutes quicker than mine. On learning this I decided to say ‘goodbye’ to Matt and slowed my pace down to something approaching the pace I was aiming for, i.e. about 7 minutes 15 seconds per mile, rather that sub 7 minute miles.

By the time I’d finished my second lap I was in 5^th place. I then gained a place by the time I was starting my last lap. I allowed a degree of negativity to start to creep into my head at this point. I told myself that finishing in 4^th place was just about the worst place to finish and didn’t feel the need to kill myself on the last lap to only come 4^th. I had almost resigned myself to having a brief walk at mile 22. I had pretty much convinced myself that I would treat the day as a 22 mile training run, with a 4 mile easy jog/walk at the end. At this stage I was passing many runners who were on their third lap. Just before reaching 22 miles I passed one runner who asked me if I was on my last lap. He then said, “Bugger, so am I. I wasn’t expecting anyone to overtake me at this stage”. This meant that I was now in 3^rd place, which suddenly gave me a podium place to defend.

I had a feeling that another runner was not far behind me. Knowing I was now 3^rd overall suddenly gave me a new lease of life. If the other runner had kept his mouth shut I wouldn’t have been any the wiser and might have taken things a little easier towards the end. But I now told myself that if anyone else was closing in on me then they’d have to beat me fair and square, I wasn’t going to make it easy for them. So I knuckled down, abandoned all thoughts of a walk break, and ran the whole way to the finish and managed to maintain a fairly even pace over the final 4 miles.

In the end I finished in a time of 3 hours 12 minutes and 50 seconds. This is very respectable on an off-road course, over undulating terrain and on a reasonably warm and windy day. Do I sound like I’m blowing my own trumpet? Well so be it. I do feel rather pleased with myself.

Matt, who I ran with at the start finished in 1^st place and just a little outside of 3 hours. I was glad I hadn’t tried to keep up with him, as I’d be ruined right now.

Left to right - 1st, 2nd and 3rd overall.

I waited near the finish area to see Robert finish in just under 4 hours, which is also a great achievement for a first marathon on quite a testing course, both mentally and physically.

A very low key finish line

I couldn’t fault the organisers, everything we needed to run the marathon was provided. There were a variety of drinks from water to squash and flat coke, and food for those who wanted it in the form of Jaffa cakes and wine gums. The drink stations were about the right distance apart and the course had all the markings that were needed to find your way around a single body of water. However I’m going to have a little whinge at some of the members of public. The event was low key, but given that we were all wearing numbers it was obvious that something was going on. On many occasions I had to weave in and out of meandering pedestrians and cyclists who seemed to look straight through me. I know they have a right to be on the paths, but surely they could show some consideration for others! And on two occasions I was almost tripped by dogs that I felt should have been under tighter control. But there you go, that’s my grumpy old git moan out of the way. I’m not going to let that ruin what has otherwise been a great weekend of running. Hurrah!