This is my third time running the Tring Ultra, one of my favourite local events for a great cause. All proceeds go towards the charity Humanity Direct to provide essential medical care and equipment to children in Africa. The course is amazing too, a challenging mix of roads, canal and hilly trails around the stunning scenery of the Chiltern Hills. The elevation switches between flat terrain and rather hilly very often, making this a tricky course in places.
Despite how much I like this event I really wasn’t feeling it when I woke up. I’m still in a bit of a slump where my low mood and frequent palpitations get in the way of my running, putting me off training and making me feel unprepared and a bit nervous for events like this.
I pulled myself together and Lorna gave me a lift to the event. Once again my goal was to make it to the end, not push myself and try to enjoy myself. I do these runs for fun after all!
The start was uneventful and very relaxed – runners just need to collect their timing chip and can start in their own time, which is something I really like (although there is also an ‘official’ start time too for the more competitive runners among us).
I got into a steady comfortable pace and by about mile 15 I’d managed to catch up to some of the other runners in the field. This is a very chilled out event with some great people taking part, and amazing volunteers helping out. Whenever you meet people on the course or at checkpoints you can often have a friendly chat. I soon forgot any of the worries I had in the morning and focussed on enjoying the day.
I managed to trip and fall at mile 20 (something I can be prone to doing) but it was nothing serious. One of the volunteers at the next checkpoint asked if I’m ok and some ‘medical’ questions like what year we’re in and who the prime minister is, which felt like a trick question as it feels like we have a new one every month now.
I got chatting to some more people at Ivinghoe beacon (at about the marathon mark) and enjoyed the view while I gathered some energy for the last stretch.
It’s usually around this part of the race where I take a wrong path over some fields and get lost, and then get very cramped legs and need to walk a bit of the last mile. Luckily neither of those things happened this time round which I was very pleased about, but was feeling very tired the last few steps towards the finish.
I came in at 5 hours 20, which turns out to be my best time for this event by a good few minutes! I put that down to not getting lost towards the end, and I’m really glad I came out to run this again.
