What a fabulous marathon to end my challenge with. Our start was at Thorpe, just north of Buxton. Apart from a strong cross wind, the conditions were perfect, and we even had a fair amount of sunshine.
We ran north along the Tissington trail, steadily, but continuously up hill for 11 miles before turning right along the White Peaks Trail towards Matlock. The stunning scenery helped take our mind off of what I felt to be more of a physiological run, as it appeared that we were continuously running up hill, even when we were running down. After a few more miles of undulation, we encountered our first serious down hill stretch at 23 miles …and god was it tough. After all of the uphill running you would expect that this would be a welcoming part of the marathon. Far from it! Believe it or not, it was so painful running down hill, that we were so much slower than our run uphill from the start. The same went for the second and last hill just before 25 miles. This was a continuous ascent of more than 500ft in less than 1 mile and that was even harder. However, our left turn along the river at the bottom of the hill, signalled our final half mile or so to the finish at Cromford and the way I was feeling over the final few miles, I never for one moment thought that I would finish this marathon in the time that I did, 3hrs 44mins. My body was definately telling me that I had done enough!
Paul and I (above photo), met at the Bath marathon. We bumped into each other and ran together in the Stratford Marathon and then at this marathon. Note the numbers. This is purely coincidental.
Thanks for sticking with me on this one Paul. Your company over the last few miles got me to the end.
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