What a wonderful NDW50

I've been blessed with the best four months of training I've ever had, and it was nice that it coincided with the NDW50.

Before the race I knew I'd beat my time last year. In fact, I had to run faster than my previous time of 13 hours 15 minutes because the cutoff had been moved up to 13 hours.

So I just sort of went out and did it.

Recently I have discovered that I'm not necessarily always the slowest person in the world. I ran the backwards London marathon in April and finished in about 4 hours with fuel left in the tank. Previous to that, I've always been a 5 hour marathon runner.

So I started the NDW50 at a slightly quicker pace than last year, and then just focused on continuing to run.

Things did turn ugly on several occasions:

• Some awful chafing by my shorts on the insides of my legs. Not even a kilo of vaseline could fix it.
• Low blood pressure, overheating and mild sickness at mile 35. Had a sit down on a tree trunk for a moment.
• Tripped over 300 stones and nearly dislocated my shoulder after one particularly silly fall.
• Both knees seized up. Had to do a million ankle-to-bum kicks to restore joint motion.

But really these were just details in what was a lovely day for me. My running was fluid, I enjoyed meeting other people along the course, and when the legs felt painful, I was able and willing to push on to the end.

The highlight for me was crossing the finish line with my daughter. My entire family was there to meet me which felt pretty special.

Though I wasn't focusing so much on time this year, I did manage to take off 1 hour 45 minutes from last year's time - finishing in 11 hours and 30 minutes. Funny how obsessing over time can sometimes make you go slower.

All of this is very nice, and admittedly it does sound a bit like an ultra fairy-tale written by a child, but there is a detail that lingers in my mind:

The North Downs Way 100 in August.

Oh golly.

Run on Strava