Ranscombe Autumn Marathon - SVN

I was experiencing mixed emotions in the week before my October marathon. Part of me felt excited to be running the distance again, while another part was apprehensive as I hadn’t run more than half a dozen miles in one go since the end of September. It ended up I was right on both accounts.

After a week of heavy rain I was expecting more of the same on the day. Being a trail marathon, I packed trail shoes along with my normal ones, and made sure I had quite a few layers.

It was still dark when I left the house at 6am to get there for an early start. The journey took an hour and by the time I arrived it was starting to get light and revealed a beautiful, cold autumn morning. There was a mist hanging over the fields beneath the hills of the north downs and the trees were resplendent with gold and red leaves.

I left the car in a field and walked to the check in area. This comprised a table with a register and stack of numbers, two portaloos, a burger van, and a long trellis table ready to be filled with goodies to sustain the runners for the day with flapjacks, crisps, jelly babies and flat coke.

Gradually more people began to arrive. We stacked our bags on a piece of tarpaulin and sipped steaming coffee while stamping our feet to keep warm.

At eight o’clock we were summoned by Travis, the organiser of the event, and given a humorous introduction to the race while applauding various people who were reaching milestones that day – one hundred marathons here, 12 marathons in 12 days there…..

The course was 3.75 miles long. The event would run for seven hours in which people could run as many or as few laps as they chose. I was hoping to complete seven which would be a marathon. Some would manage one and others eleven. Everyone received a medal and goody bag.

Seventy-five of us were sent on our way. We ran along the long side of a ploughed field and after one hundred yards turned left along the shorter side after which the trail began to climb gently, emerging through a tunnel of trees to reveal a stunning view across farmland to mist covered hills in the distance. It was like a picture postcard. The black cows standing the other side of the fence looked on as a herd of brightly clad, mostly middle-aged men and women traipsed past.

We then descended steeply down a rutted track, passed through a metal gate and traversed a field. The mud had dried out but remained soft and slightly sticky which actually made a nice soft surface to run on. Half-way across the field we began to climb again and then a series of mud stairs took us through some bushes and onto a forest trail.

This turned out to be my favourite part of the run. Soft but dry mud decorated with wriggly roots under foot, ancient trees with gnarly grey trunks festooned with fiery leaves above and white cup mushrooms scattered across the woodland floor. It was a steep climb, but I don’t mind uphill.

At the top of the path were some more steps and another gate. We emerged from the trees into another large open field with more stunning views. The route took us onward for 50m and then a sharp 90 degrees right turn to another gate. The muddiest part of the lap lay before us but again it was more tacky than wet mud. An open field that descended steeply and then ascended the other side into another wooded area.

This was the steepest part and I walked it most laps, enjoying the sights, sounds and beauty of the autumn season. At the top we joined a marked trail through the woods which began flat and then gradually, then more sharply descended for around half a mile. The floor was carpeted with beech nuts and their spiky shells. The train line marked the end of this trail and we ducked right onto a very narrow path with low hanging trees which caused us to duck and dodge the branches, twigs and thorns. This continued for quite a way before dropping down to the bottom of more steps.

The end of the lap was now close as we climbed the steps with hands on knees. We had entered another wood and this one contained a path that wound between trees and passed a rudimentary swing made from rope and a sturdy branch.

Unfortunately, the area had been littered with dozens of cans and plastic bottles. It upset me to see such a beautiful place treated so badly and on lap two I picked up a discarded carrier bag and filled it with all the rubbish, depositing in the bin at the check point. This resulted in a couple of plogging laps where I collected litter that had been discarded along the paths. I don’t know why people can’t just wait until they find a bin even if it isn’t a recycling one…

Anyway, we had reached the end of the lap as we burst out of the wood and back onto the side of the field we had started on. At the end of each lap we would get our card hole punched to show how many laps we had completed. When we finished there was a large bell to ring.

By the end of the first lap I felt shockingly bad. Faint, weak, dizzy and tired. I spent quite a while at the food table scoffing salted peanuts, vegan flapjack and guzzling water. It seemed to work because I picked up on the second lap and from then on I felt fine.

Well, apart from lap six when my heart rate went a bit crazy. I was walking up the steep hill through the woods when I felt my heart beating through my t-shirt. Checking my heart rate monitor it was showing 185. My maximum should be 177. I wasn’t running and not particularly out of breath even, but I stopped and allowed my heart to slow until it was below 150. After that it seemed to be ok.

It is always hard for me not to make each run a competition. I had started too fast and was in fifth after the first lap – this could have been why I felt so ill – but I told myself to take it easy and enjoy the day. I dropped right back but was still running a good pace.

However, by the last lap I had worked out that I was in fact third of the marathoners taking part. First place had already lapped me and was miles ahead. Second was about half a mile ahead when I left the check point for the last time. Imagine my surprise when a mile from the end I spotted him ahead of me. Naturally I gunned it and managed a seven-minute mile to take second.

During the run I met and chatted to a few people, but none was as impressive as Nick Nicholson. He was running 30 miles on the day and wore a t-shirt which said 270 marathons in 52 weeks. Turns out he has run 1000 marathons in 4 years. He has world records for:

Most marathons in a year
Most ultra (50k) marathons in a year
Fastest time to complete 100 marathons
Fastest time to complete 100 untra (50k) marathons
Quickest to achieve 1000 marathons
Fastest time to run a marathon in all 50 US states