For anyone that knows me then you will know a running track and me just don’t go. It is like trying to mix oil and water. Over the years I’ve used the track as an evil necessity to improve my speed for longer races. The thought of actually running a race on a track has been as far away in my mind as swimming, my other pet hate.
I suppose you are now wondering how far the race was, 400m, 800m, 3000m or even 10,000m, come on you are talking to me, it had to be a marathon, yep 105 and a half laps!
Well this makes up for not doing any track training sessions for the last 2 years and it might be another 2 years before I’m on one again.
A couple of years ago when I first heard that track marathons actually existed, I thought what a crazy idea but as time has passed it has become one of those things I wanted to have a go at, experience and form my own opinion.
It wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I had initially expected. In fact there are a number of logistical positives in running a track marathon, there are toilets, and a drink station every 400m and you can even leave your own drinks, food and clothing at the side of the track, the course is flat and you can’t get lost. It is also a very social event as you talk to runners you run with but also the ones who over take you and you over take. You also get to watch the front runners and the slow runners and how they are running while you run your own race, you don’t get the opportunity to do that at London!
I would like to give a big thanks to all who arranged and helped with the marathon today, it was exceptionally well organised, with the biggest goodie bag I’ve ever seen, I thought I had done the weekly Asda shop! I would also like to give a special BIG thanks to Danny the DJ and his fun choice of music for keeping us entertained and our minds off what we were doing. Great fun event!
The only thing that didn’t like the day was my Garmin, it struggled with going round and round and I think it thought I was crossing the field between the track some of the time, which I didn’t! So my Garmin ended up telling me I had run 28 miles. If only it had been correct then I might have had a marathon PB today.
