Three Forts Marathon 2009
By Julien on Monday, May 4 2009, 18:09 - Events - Permalink
Updated 06/05/2009
On Sunday I went to run the Three Forts Marathon for the second time. Featuring a distance of 27 miles and about 1000m of ascent run over non-technical off-road paths, this race is intermediate between a marathon and a trail. The original plan was to run with my fellow Chameleons Sven and Leo, but Leo injured his back a day earlier, so we were only two of us.
I ran the first half up to Devil's Dyke with Sven, but given my nearly-inexistent training due to my PhD thesis writing-up, I let him go ahead at that point. Everything went well until the second ascent from the Adur River that left me with a bad hypoglycemia. I reacted a bit too late, thinking I could reach the next water station before things would be too bad. I eventually decided to let a Honey Stinger melt under my tongue and once again, it saved my day.
Unfortunately, once my blood sugar level was back to normal, I started to have cramps in the quadriceps, especially downhill. The end was quite hard in these conditions, and I had to stretch and take short walks quite often. I finished in just 3:59:43, ranking 29th out of 149 finishers, which is not too bad in the end (I did 3:56:35, 31st, in 2007 with a much better training).
Once arrived, I was surprised that Sven wasn't around. Indeed, he had got lost following a group of five. Surprisingly, the marshal posted at the path junction saw them going the wrong way and didn't say anything. Sven reckoned he lost about 10 minutes there.
Overall, it was a good day out on a friendly race. The weather was windy and sunny (I got mildly sunburned...).
It's also nice to see that I can run a (hilly) marathon even with a very poor training. Although obviously this was far from optimal.
Ultra restart of the season
On Sunday I went to run the Three Forts Marathon for the second time. Featuring a distance of 27 miles and about 1000m of ascent run over non-technical off-road paths, this race is intermediate between a marathon and a trail. The original plan was to run with my fellow Chameleons Sven and Leo, but Leo injured his back a day earlier, so we were only two of us.
I ran the first half up to Devil's Dyke with Sven, but given my nearly-inexistent training due to my PhD thesis writing-up, I let him go ahead at that point. Everything went well until the second ascent from the Adur River that left me with a bad hypoglycemia. I reacted a bit too late, thinking I could reach the next water station before things would be too bad. I eventually decided to let a Honey Stinger melt under my tongue and once again, it saved my day.
Unfortunately, once my blood sugar level was back to normal, I started to have cramps in the quadriceps, especially downhill. The end was quite hard in these conditions, and I had to stretch and take short walks quite often. I finished in just 3:59:43, ranking 29th out of 149 finishers, which is not too bad in the end (I did 3:56:35, 31st, in 2007 with a much better training).
Once arrived, I was surprised that Sven wasn't around. Indeed, he had got lost following a group of five. Surprisingly, the marshal posted at the path junction saw them going the wrong way and didn't say anything. Sven reckoned he lost about 10 minutes there.
Overall, it was a good day out on a friendly race. The weather was windy and sunny (I got mildly sunburned...).
It's also nice to see that I can run a (hilly) marathon even with a very poor training. Although obviously this was far from optimal.
Ultra restart of the season