I’ve run this event so many times I’ve lost count! This year’s theme is Star Wars (They seem to take on themes based on movie franchises now - I have no idea why or if they’ve acquired the rights). I remember getting excited about the themed medals, and booked the 5K Rocket for Lorna, and the Marathon for myself. And then forgot all about it!
I have the Ridgeway 40 coming up in just a week’s time, so my plan is to keep this fun, comfortable and treat it as a training run. The weather was absolutely perfect too! Kind of grim, cold and overcast. Just how I like it.
We had a family wedding in Suffolk the weekend before this event so couldn’t make the 5K but I was fortunately back home in time to take part. We arrived back the day before and I hastily unpacked and re-packed my race bag to be able to set off for MK at 8:30am.
The race HQ is at MK Stadium, and I know the drill by now - where to drop off bags, and roughly where to wait to be ushered in to the starting paddocks. I was in yellow zone again (the second of 4 starting groups) and there was about a 7 minute wait after the Red zone to get started before it was our turn.
The start was quite chaotic - there were around 5000 runners in total and it felt a bit crowded. The runners seemed very quick this year too. I might have started a bit too close to the start of my group because I was being overtaken by scores of people, including the 4 hour pacer, and then the 3:45 pacer after! I’m guessing the pacers were trying to make up the 7 minute lag at the start line so that they were in time with the official times.
It’s the same course as last year so I knew what to expect, and things started to calm down after the first lap. Most of the half marathon runners were done by then, leaving us marathon and relay runners to the rest of the distance. To me this was a very comfortable and pleasant run - I felt in the flow and steadily putting away the miles.
I found myself getting a little tired around mile 23 but was able to keep to a steady 9 minute mile and even found myself overtaking quite a few people at this point up until the finish. I came in at 4:05, which I’m pretty happy with, over 20 minutes faster than last year!
And, pleased to say the medal lived up to my excitement (even if I forgot all about this event). I couldn’t quite make it to the 5K and get the special “Challenge” medal for doing two events over the weekend, but I’ll take this - it’s a funny medal for the collection.