Tuesday 1 March 2011

Round and round and round again!!!!!

Its been a while since I have posted, I have been very busy getting the miles in over the last 2 weeks almost 140miles.  I am really pleased about the way the training is going it included a 36miler this weekend over my favourite hill Bredon. I saw a fantastic sunrise on the summit, it is moments like that which makes the training all worth while and not feel like a slog all the time. I just wish I had a camera on me (note to self take a camera with me).

On Sunday Anna and I found ourselves in a very wet and windy Barry in Wales. We were there to lap score a track event called the Barry 40. This event is the oldest Ultra still going in the country and this year was its 25th year. The event demanded just short of 161 laps of an athletic track to achieve the required 40miles.

We were there to lap score for Rory & Jen, this event was being run by Jens running club, it was also the Welsh Ultra championships at the same time. So Jen was on home turf but she said before hand that she was treating it as a training run.

Rory as ever was there to get another marathon under his belt and had no intentions of running the 40 so for him it was a mere 105 laps plus a bit..

Anna was scoring for Rory and I had the task of scoring for Jen. We were given our score sheets and were told that we were required to write down the accumulative time each lap, but at the same time we needed to work out the individual lap times.

I must admit I was glad I had the opportunity to see an event like this first hand as I had always thought I might like to have a go at one of these events.

As the race progressed and I saw some of the athletes beating them selves up lap after lap after lap, I began to realise that this event is really not what I want right now, for me Ultras are all about the freedom and seeing places and witnessing views that you don't see on a daily basis. I knew then that achieving a time on a track event would always have its place in the sport for people but it was not for me.

Anyway back to the event the scoring to start with took some getting used to, but on the whole it was a fairly enjoyable event apart from the infernal cold and rain.

Well after scoring 105 and a bit laps Rory finished his marathon, and I think he was quite relieved to be getting off the track.

A while later the leader came through and finished in a crazy time of around 4hr 20mins ish for 40miles, very impressive. We were then privileged to witness 2 world records by a 77 year old he achieved the world records for 30miles and 50k for the over 75cat, It was awesome to witness this.

Then as the leading lady came in to finish narrowly missing out on 3rd place overall it was apparent that she had achieved a 9th best time in the world for 40miles.

Jen finished some 20 Min's later in a time of 5hr 9mins ish which was good enough to take the title of Ultra welsh champion. She had taken 10 Min's of her PB, so much for a training run.

I enjoyed my day by the track and listening to Rory's little anecdotes and general chit chat made it all the more amusing...

I must admit though the MacDonald's coffee we had after tasted fantastic even though I don't like there coffee, it was still better than my supposed coffee that I had made which ended up being just hot water as I forgot to put the coffee in the flask.....

It was a great day and seeing it from the other side, ie helping others to achieve there goals in a race is a great feeling.

Any back to the training again this week.......

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