The Dirt Half is a great, local event that I’ve done a few times now. This year I ran it with Lorna, who’s finished a few 10k runs and wanted to have a go at a half marathon. We met up with some of Lorna’s work friends and Daryn too, so there were quite a few of us taking part.
This can be quite a challenging route for newcomers with rather mixed terrain so Lorna and I ran parts of the route around Rushmere in the weeks leading up to the event to give her an idea of what to expect. Lorna did great in these training runs (which included a her longest ever 9 mile run) so she was in a good place to take on the 13.2 miles of the event.
I stayed with Lorna for the whole distance to keep each other company. We usually run our own events so it was really nice to be able to do something like this together for a change. Lorna was a bit nervous about the distance as she rarely gets time to do much training and this was a big step into the unknown. Despite this she did amazingly well and kept a good steady pace to the end, although we did walk some of the hills.
Our training runs at Rushmere really paid off – it’s the most challenging section of the route with lots of hills, roots and slippery trails but Lorna was very familiar with it by now and was looking forward to this bit the most. Autumn was in full swing and the falling orange leaves made for a very striking and beautiful scenery that was a joy to run through. The muddy field lived up to expectations this year as well but not completely waterlogged like some years thankfully. Lorna got through unscathed but I managed to get one of my feet completely swallowed up by the churned up mud. At least neither of us fell in!
We finished at 2 hours 24 which Lorna was delighted with as a first attempt (and with limited training) and is already keen to book another 10k run some time soon. I wouldn’t be surprised if she wants to even try a marathon too!
