19th May Running the rat race at Eyam (R19)

And no I am not even going to start attempting to pronounce the name correctly. All I know is that it is famous as the plague village where an outbreak of the Black Death in 1665-6 saw the villagers decide to isolate themselves from the surrounding communities in order to contain the disease and prevent its spread. As a result 260 out of a total population of 800 died. Today as I ran what is known locally as the 'Rat Race', there were moments when death seemed a viable option.

Turns out that this is my 11th half marathon, well 13th actually if you included my only attempt at a full marathon in Chester and a 14 mile jolly in Charnwood, where that extra mile was the longest one ever. My first half was back in 2006 when I staggered round the very first edition of the Llanelli Half marathon, the last being in 2018 when it was the Worksop Halloween half. They have been a mixture of trail events and runs on the road with my 'fastest' ever time being just over 2 hours when running the ultra flat Cardiff half back in 2010.

Todays little effort, the Eyam Half could never ever be described as flat. In fact its has a reputation as being how shall we say 'challenging'. which in laymans terms means hills. Lots of hills. But what goes up must eventually come down, although in reality it normally never seems that way. Today strangley there seemed more down than up.

I had checked out the elevation profile of the race and so knew that whilst there would be some hard sections, including the first 4 and the last 3 miles, there should also have been some areas of respite including a long undulating but ultimatley downhill section between miles 5 and 9. What I perhaps hadn't realised was just what a battering ones toes take when running downhill for over 4 miles. I feel as if I have attended a crash course in Chinese foot binding.

With regards getting race fit,(spoiler alert I never have been) I have been managing to run with a greater frequency this year although not at the distance that would be required today. But as it was the first (and possibly last ) time I have entered this event, whatever time I finished in would be a PB.

At 10.30am the 450 plus runners were off and at 10.32am I was already puffing up the first incline of the day with only another 1500 ft of ascent to go. The sun was out and the temperature was hovering around the low 20's and not a cloud in the sky, this was going to be hard. 

And it was. But let's be honest with such stunning scenery, during which I am I told I could see for miles and miles including five different counties, it would have been rude to run any quicker than I did.

It was a beautiful run during which time we were pased by a vintage car rally and saw gliders soaring on the thermals high overhead. And with a time of 2hr 27 mins on what was a beast of a course, on a blistering day, it wasn't a bad effort for a distance that I hadn't really run for over 5 years. And possibly won't for another 5...lol. Pictorial evidence will appear as soon as its available.