Made it and I am still alive! Yesterday was a HUGE day - my first ever Marathon and my first ever Ultramarathon - Why i chose a 50Miler instead of 30 I will never know! We set off on Friday night and stayed at Travellodge in Hereford and then it was up at 4.30am to get the start in llangurig for 7.30am. The weather looked pretty good and Blizzard was ready to run with me and Debs too. At the start it was great to meet Jonathon and Otto and also Sandra and Kez who were going to run the whole event with their dogs. True to form Blizzard was CRAZY on the start line managing to get herself out of her harness before the bell had rang. The start was fast and probably too fast as Blizzard and Kex dragged Sandra and I off up into the hills. Poor Debbie was struggling to keep up. The start was a little event full as we followed people then realised we were on the wrong road so a detour through a graden was required. Anyway back on track and the route wnet right up into the Welsh hills - stunning countryside all around and nice off road terrain. We then hit a two mile road section where Sandra zoomed off into the distance. Blizz was running well and we were looking forward to the 14 mile stage where we would see Phil. Sure enough there he was handing out "9 seed" bars (I will explain later!) So off again into the hills! At this point Debbie had also picked up a dog! Sandra had a few spares and when we caught up we decided that Kobi would like a run so Debs took Kez and Sandra gave little Kobi a good taste of Mountain running. All was going well so far - very little in the way of niggles and pains! Hurrah! I was drinking my energy drink and nibbling on Tuc crackers and feeling fine!I had a Gel at about 17 miles as I was feeling a little low and that seemed to help. We pushed on! At 22.5 miles we met Phil as we had arranged and at this point Debs and I decided to slow down a little so we left Sandra and we had a stop where we changed Shoes and socks ready for teh more roady section. I also left Blizz at this point and she seemed happy to rest. With Fresh shoes we carried on - we had been eating Cheese and ham, jelly babies and the like and both had fresh energy drinks in our packs. So we set off at an easier pace. We soon started catching up the people who had overtaken us when we had out stop and we had a little celebration at 25miles as we could then start to count down and another at 26.2 as that was my first ever marathon. There seemed to be a lot of road on this section and i was pleased with my decision to leave Blizzard. Miles 30 - 35 felt very tough as some signs had been moved ad we got a little lost. The best thing about the event was meeting Philip at the 38 mile mark where he had bought us COCA COLA - i know now what my body craves on long runs and this is it - i have never tasted anything so good! We carried on struggling a little with the road sections but we started to reel people in and made up about 5 places. With 5 miles to go my right shin really started playing up and with 3 miles to go it was very very painful. We managed to finish in 10.08 and 4th place so we are determined to do some more as the winner was not that far in front of us at all!
