South Downs Trail marathon 2018

The winning time was just under 3 hours which is pretty amazing considering the number and severity of the hills, both going up and when coming down. In the second half the hills were even steeper though the hills profile image suggests otherwise. I could literally hardly move my legs to climb up the hill at 24 miles. The final mile is the easiest part of the route; a gentle downhill slope but many of the hills were too steep jog down. Following the Worcester marathon where I missed the cut off, my aim was to finish inside the time limit (7 hours). I was quarter of an hour ahead at the half marathon stage and about 5 minutes ahead at 20 miles; some of the hills reduced the pace to about 2 mph. In the end I finished 10 minutes inside the time limit (in last place!) but still within the time limit - yeah! ...walking up the hill to the car park was an extra bonus. One item of good news is that the toe on the left foot was fine throughout the race. I pitched the tent on the Friday night to avoid the 3 hour journey on the Saturday morning. Overall it was great fun and I now have to wait and see if I'm able to enter the Serpent Trail 50k as entries were full and I was placed on a waiting list.