4th October: Clarendon Calls

After I had finished my initial challenge of 12 marathons in 12 months back in 2013, one of the races I undertook to push me towards my secondary ’13 in 13’ goal was the Clarendon Marathon.

This is a point-to-point marathon across the countryside from Salisbury to Winchester following the ‘Clarendon Way’ footpath between the cities. This race is unusual in that it offers you the opportunity to run from one county’s county town (Salisbury is Wiltshire’s) to another (Winchester is Hampshire’s) conveniently over an existing path that covers 26.2 miles!

With the finish of Winchester just a half hour drive down the road from me its an ideal race through its proximity, so I was up early for the drive to the event car park just off the M3 in the park-and-ride and the bus transfer to the start in Salisbury.

I owed myself a better running of this route as on my past outing here I felt I had not been as quick as I could have been, so I was all fired-up to run it as hard as I could and finish stronger than before.

The course is as straightforward as it is unremarkable and for a trail marathon its pretty flat. Whilst it is always a pleasure running through open countryside on this run there’s not really any spectacular views to be seen or challenging terrain to conquer, so it is quite a good route to put in the effort to get a quick time under your belt or a pb for a trail marathon, so in advance I had decided to knuckle down and give a good account of myself!

Registration.

Disembarking from the bus I registered in the event base of a school sports-hall in Salisbury and killed the hour or so of time as I prepared for the start. Mercifully this year the queue for the portaloos was nowhere near as bad as before! and before long we were gathered on the playing field and unleashed upon the trail after the loud-hailer lead countdown.

Funnelling through the start.

Head down… Charge!

Concentrating in finishing as fast as I could, I put in as much effort as I could muster for the first half to give myself some training for my forthcoming sub 4 hour marathon tilts and as such I was not really stopping to take pics of my surroundings in the lovely autumn morning!

By the time I went through the first aid-station with its handover point for the marathon relay runners (you can run the distance as a team of 4), there were still some runners waiting to receive their batons, so my time to get there could not have been too shabby.

Across one of the many fields.

On hitting the halfway, there were only a couple of relay runners waiting and all of those starting here to run-in to the finish on the half were all long-gone but I had managed to get through in close-on 2 hours, which for me was quite a strong showing and I had the knowledge that the hard effort here was putting me on-track to beat my previous time with plenty in the bank.

As I passed through the aid station around the 17 mile mark I was prepared from memory for the only evil climb on the route, but this was nowhere near as bad as I remembered it from a couple of years back - maybe I’ve become somewhat inured to these since my last visit! although about a mile later things really began to hurt.

The stubble after the harvest.

So far on every trip through the aid stations I had taken a cup or 2 of blackcurrant that was on offer rather than just drinking out of my Camelbak - and unfortunately this was beginning to have an adverse effect on me. I was feeling the fluid sloshing around inside me and cramping-up, feeling hungry I wanted to eat but I was feeling pukey every time I put something in my mouth. Carrying-on as best as I could I was determined to fight through this - then I thought I’d take a gel, one of my latest self-made batches, to give me some energy but that just made me feel even worse, with light-headedness now added to the mix as well.

The lowest point of the course crossing the river Itchen.

Things got so bad that on reaching the last checkpoint with a few miles to go I grabbed a handful of jelly beans with the intention of just sucking on them to get something inside me. Fortunately these seemed to slowly perk me up and I managed to plod the final stretch to the finish.

The inviting cool water.

Note to self - you carry a drink in your Camelbak, an unsweetened electrolyte to sip as you need it when thirsty and ward-off any cramping, which you know works, so why take any other fluid at an aid station you numpty? Oh well, you live and learn!

I managed to drag my sorry arse across the finish line a bit slower than I would have been on a perfect day after the last 6 miles saw a bit of a drop in pace, the last 2 noticeably so because of the above… But I still managed it a good 23 minutes quicker than I was in the previous running!.. So certainly a result there of nearly a minute a mile faster!

Since the last time I was here they’ve decided to give finishers a medal and a t-shirt, something that was an optional paid extra before when you booked your place - so this time I had a bit of ‘bling’ to show for the day and another t-shirt for the ever increasing stack of them!

Lying on the grass by the finish line I recovered my equilibrium before the short drive home and a protein-fix dinner of some home-made burgers, relieved that I have given a better account of myself over the course this time.

Eat pies.
Drink beer.
Run far.