6am and the alarm clock’s ringing in my ear, the rain is pouring down outside and I’m so tempted to turn over!!!
The 40 minute drive to Ackworth wasn’t filling me with confidence as the weather was getting worse by the mile.
I eventually park up and register, get my race number on and meet my running buddy 45 minutes later. Having to stand
around in the rain and wind before the race hooter went off wasn’t ideal either.
So the race itself was a hilly course all very marshalled filled with sweets on the way round.
Right from the start we knew this was going to be a tough race. We had to divert off the course to avoid a flooded road, but we soldiered on and started to settle down in to our race pace and as the miles passed, we took the constant headwind and driving rain
in our step.
By the time we got to the half way point we stopped for water and to plan how to attack the last half of the race. We decided to run the last part alone and just finish. My pace picked up knowing I only had a few miles to go.
Happily the weather started to turn, the wind slowed and the rain stopped!!! BLISS!!!
The last mile was filled with another flooded road, which, by the time
I got to it, I just went Rambo style and got drenched. This was then followed by the worst hill of the course but as I got to the
top I could see the finish line and actually sprinted in and finished in a time of 1 hour 58 minutes 16 seconds.
Driving back home I was thinking I’ll definitely do this one again and I’d recommend it to the other Pumas. Here’s the link for the event:
http://www.