Forrest of dean half marathon

[Jungle_re]

Where: Forrest of dean
When: When 30 march
Organiser: Organiser round table wild boar events
Course details: Course Details trail half marathon
Distance(s): Distances 13 miles and a bit
Marshalling: Marshalling good
Facilities: Facillities not enough
Technical: Technical
Freebies: Freebies medal lucozade and nutty bar

My Race:


Set in the middle of the Forrest of dean this race is nearly all trail through the woods apart from a short section at the beginning on the road by the car park. Parking was good, a few charity stalls, ice cream van and BBQ where available. One thing mega noticeable was there were nowhere near enough toilets, it was about a 40 min wait meaning that the night before careful carb loading of take away chilly beef and a bottle of wine funnily enough brought back from St Polten required a cheeky shovel recce in the woods!

Was really nervous about this as the longest run I had managed prior was a 10 mile shuffle around the top deck of ship at around 11m miles and completely flat, since this I had spent a weeks holiday very much enjoying Copenhagen with only a 5 km hangover beating run in between. This was another tester ready for ironman Sweden in a similar vain to my bike ride with Ris last year it was a tester to see if Sweden was still even a dream or if I needed to pull out. One thing I'd say is this Is a fairly large event now must have been a couple of thousand there would need to check the results.

The course is quite hilly but the most noticeable part was the the steep down hill after the first mile this was really steep in some places and being close to the start lots of bottle necks. I'm fat and heavy so the up hills kill me so like to make the most use of my very long legs and large gut for the declines, this was difficult to do! A few risky over taking in the mis and sticks but I only lost a few minutes I expect. The next segment was fairly flat and ran through the woods along a really nice lake, couldn't really get a full appreciation as my chest was making a noise like a smashed accordion! By the 5 mile point I was already feeling a little fatigued but my lungs had cleared up and my breathing felt good with nice long deep controlled breaths. The jelly baby breakfast was working a treat. The rest passed fairly non eventfully till the 10 mile point with a few cheeky climbs I slowly dragged myself up getting over taken by some and over taking many who seemed to walk every incline only to sprint on the flat! At the 10 mile point that was it for the legs they just lost all energy and ability to stride, lungs and hr were fine (although I didn't wear my hr belt as I was worried what I'd see and just went by feeling) but I sunk into a Brecon shuffle. I was determined not to walk teasing myself that if I needed to there is no way I'd have the moral fibre to finish IM and to just get on with it. Didn't really feel too bad other than the legs just wouldn't go any faster! I dragged my feet over in 2hrs 13mins which is about 10 mins slower than my HIM run time! The hill and terrain might account for a bit but suffer no illusions most of it was lack of fitness. I finished about middle of the pack and in the bottom 5th of my group so about where I'm normally am in run only events.

Overall lots of positives for me and I'm still going to try and get some key consistency back into my training. I've finally sorted out somewhere to live which is a huge weight of my mind and my divorce is nearly completed so can really get stuck into some decent training hopefully. Time to pull back the cycling now!

I do this again I think and would certainly recommend it as a good alternative to the road pounding HM

[Jack Hughes]

Well done!

The terrain will slow things down a hell of a lot compared with a road race, so the time is probably around your "much more trained" time.

[Worrying Will]

Well gone. Sound like you enjoyed it.

written using my bestist willglish

[jonathon.e]

Good going, well done.

[Sir Jibbenstein]

Great effort. Just getting out there and doing it sounds like a difficult enough journey for you so well done on making the start line, and well done on getting round!

[willy_1977]

Nice work! ... free banjer with every entry as its the forest.

Thrown together, stream of consciousness thing, lovelee...tapa tapa tapa tappy talk... talk about things we like to do...

[TRIumphant]

Always seems to get good feedback, and also the course seems to be harder than people expect.

I was in a Sportive around the Forest of Dean on Sunday, very nice day for it and deceptively warm.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Tritans]

Well done.

Off road will make a big difference to your time.

You toughed it out. Plenty of time to get fitter for Kalmar.




Penned in the finest quill from The Royal County.

[Jungle_re]

Cheers everyone. Yep the weather was certainly nice but very humid.
Surprisingly don't feel too bad now after a days rest going for a gentle 4 mile jog tonight in Plymouth after my course finishes for the day. Just need to keep making progress.