Last Sunday I ran the Three Forts Challenge half marathon. This was never going to be a fast run with the problems I’m still having with my achilles so I planned to go along, take it easy and enjoy the scenery !
One thing I must say is the superb marshals who have cake for you. Personally I think all races should provide runners with cake, especially when you get to the top of a very steep hill 🙂
The weather was fairly appalling. I don’t mind rain, fog or snow but the one thing I do find hard is strong wind and boy did it blow ! Running along the top of the South Downs Way was “challenging” not only was it windy but the visibility was measured in tens of feet rather than hundreds…. It was quite warm with it and this led to the inevitable clothing dilemma before I started out. I opted for 3/4 length trousers, a vest top and my fully taped waterproof/windproof jacket over the top. At times I was grateful for the jacket but I did end up taking it off, rolling it up and putting it on my backpack.
I didn’t drink as much as perhaps I should have done and I felt good just running on cake and jelly babies (I had my normal breakfast of porridge, chia seeds and banana). I ran the whole race with my daughter, we are going to be running the Brecon Beacons race together to I thought this would be good training 🙂 Neither of us had been well during the week so we really didn’t push it (does this just sound like an excuse ??)
It had been raining so it was muddy and quite slippery in places. I was running in a cheap pair of More Mile trail shoes. I had done a couple of runs in them before but not the distance I would have liked. One thing I did find out is that they make my toes sore in a way that the Inov-8’s don’t. So lesson learned; I think these will be fine for short muddy runs (10k or less) but I will need to buy another pair of Inov-8’s before I head up a mountain !
The trainers were the only real fail of the run. My new backpack didn’t quite arrive in time so that will get its first run out tomorrow. I’m impressed with the look of it so far, I’ll let you know how it goes…
Anyway here are a few photos from Sunday 🙂  as you can see we still had the energy for a sprint finish !
