Tring2Town 40 Miles Report

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The alarm went off at 05:35 on Saturday morning. I got dressed in shorts, a couple of layers on top, had a cup of tea and filled my hydration system with a 2Ltr supply of water and was in the car for 06:00. Claire had been brilliant again and got up to drop me at the station so I could catch the 06:20 from WGC to Finsbury Park.

I met up with Ben who had stayed at the hotel where the race was due to start and got my race number. Approximately 130 runners congregated at the start for the race briefing, which lasted all of a minute, something like "go down this road, turn right in 800 metres and follow the sign that says 139 miles to Birmingham"!

The race started at 08:15 and we headed for the Grand Union Canal, which we would follow the whole way to Tring, Hertfordshire.

From the outset we both had the feeling that everyone running was an ultra veteran, its seemed like the event was sponsored by Raidlight, every other bag was the same as mine! Within a few hundred meteres we started running with a lady from Cornwall and we got chatting about the MDS and it turns out that she is the oldest British lady running this year. Needless to say we're pretty sure she beat us to the finish! Women seem to have this great ability to run for longer that men, every race we've done it's been the case.

Anyway on to our race...this was training for us we never intended on running the whole thing, its not what we'll do on the MDS. We were both carrying about 6-7 kgs again and the plan was to run the first hour and get 7-8 quick miles under our belts. We then alternated 30 mins walk, 30 mins run. We thought this would give us an average speed of 5.5 mph over the 40 miles. As expected this worked well for the first few hours but we both started to feel our legs getting stiffer by the minute after 20 miles. The 50 mile TPU two weeks previously was starting to take its toll. We both felt fine at the start and pretty fresh but our legs hadn't fully recovered.

We flew through each checkpoint, only stopping to grab some more water and some much needed haribo's! We battled through the tough last 12 miles and finished as hoped under 8 hours in a time of 7hrs 38mins, which we were very happy with.

As I mentioned in my previous post, there was an option to run back from Tring to Kew on the Sunday. Don't ask me why but Ben took them up on the challenge and ran back on Sunday. Brilliant effort and great mental toughness to get out of that comfy hotel bed at 07:00 on Sunday!