The Ridgeway 40 is a 40 mile event organised by the LDWA. It’s meant to be a walk but runners can also take part. It starts and Avebury and follows the Ridgeway, Britain’s oldest pathway, finishing at Goring Village Hall.
This race follows less than a week from the MK Marathon, and is officially the longest distance I have covered in an event (my previous was last year’s Tolkein Run, where I covered 37 miles in 6 hours).
I’ve only just started to get into ultra running and so far have very limited experience running on trails, so I came to this event with a lot of unknowns, a brand pair of trail shoes I hadn’t worn before and a new Salomon S-Lab vest I recently bought especially for the longer runs I have planned this year. The saying “all the gear and no idea’ certainly came to mind as I turned up with all this new stuff!
Luckily, as the Ridgeway is a national trail it’s very clearly marked, with little chance to go wrong along the way. A handy map was also available on the event’s website and I had the route mapped on my Garmin. For this event I had no preconceptions for pace or expected times and was just going to take it easy and enjoy the day. Thankfully the weather had settled down from the inferno that was Monday’s MK Marathon, and – I didn’t want to jinx it – actually seemed to be ideal conditions for a run.
I drove down the night before to stay at Streatly Youth Hostel, and at 6am the following morning a coach arrived to bring the participants over to the start at Overton Hill near Avebury. I had been registered already and had my tally card (which needs to be clipped at each checkpoint), so I was ready to go!
Runners are advised to start at a later time because they can arrive at the checkpoints before they open. I was on the first coach however and started early. I knew I was going to take this really easy and as I’m not the fastest runner I didn’t expect there to be an issue.
The first part of the course was very heavily rutted and I found myself hopping over the terrain and passing the majority of the walkers and a couple of runners. I tried to keep the pace around 9-10 minute miles for this which was easy due to the uneven terrain and stunning scenery to distract me.
At around 8 miles I came up to Barbury Castle which is an impressive, almost otherworldly sight. Being the tourist that I am I stopped to try and get a good photo (didn’t do it justice) while a runner sped past me. I was soon after joined by another runner while we attempted to navigate past a herd of cows blocking the stile we needed to cross (they were startled by the last runner who flew past them, thanks a lot!). The first checkpoint soon came and we met up some other runners having a chat with the lovely marshals there.
The four of us stuck together for a bit, taking it easy on the uphills and chatting away. It was clear to me that these are much quicker runners than me, as I tried to keep up. After a while we all broke off and settled into our own paces. There were a lot more runners at this point, all running quicker than me, but not by much.
The second checkpoint came very soon after. Being a walking event there are frequent water stops with tea, cake and snacks available every few miles or so. I didn’t spend long at the checkpoints and carried on my way. The scenery along the ridgeway is absolutely beautiful, with incredible views across the Wiltshire countryside, and some utterly amazing, ancient historic sites along the way. I was having a fantastic time.
One thing that dawned on me later in the run was that a lot of the trail is chalk based and very hard underfoot. I’m used to running on tarmac but after a while, the chalk did start to batter the undersides of my feet! The trail shoes I was wearing were not overly necessary but I was glad I brought them – the soles are a thick rubber that helped with the rocks I was running on.
I kept my steady pace going and very soon I came to the half way point, still feeling pretty good. There is a shorter 20 mile walk that takes starts off here so it wasn’t long before I was passing another group of walkers. At this part of the run I found myself passing some of the runners who had started to slow down which made me feel glad I was taking it easy.
I spent more time at the various checkpoints now that I was starting to feel more tired and needed my flask refilling. All of the organisers and volunteers were absolutely lovely and it was great chatting away with them before getting back out on the trail.
About 3 miles from the finish I was passed by Paul Ali and Paul Beechey who I recognised from the former’s excellent running blog. We said a quick hello and they breezed past me effortlessly. These guys have been running ultras for years and make events like this look easy.
Finally I reached Goring Village Hall to hand in my tally card and receive my certificate (no finisher medals here – this isn’t a running event).
I was tired but still felt surprisingly good despite the distance. My Garmin read 6:57 (Official time logged at 7:01 because I hung around for a bit before setting off) which puts me in around 8th overall! I’m delighted with this result as a first attempt of this distance, and it was a faster overall pace than last years 37 miler too so that shows I’m improving.
