Yesterday I swapped the busy, polluted, noisey streets of London for the quiet and scenic trails of Marlow & Windsor.  What a great idea that was!

With 13 weeks left until the Frankfurt Marathon the weekly long runs have picked up and I had my eyes on the Purple Patch Down Tow Up Flow Half Marathon.  It’s a point to point race which changes direction each year, this year it was Down Tow starting in Marlow and finishing in Windsor.  Windsor only took 40 minutes to get to then I got one of the organised coaches to the start so my car would be waiting for me at the end, that’s a quicker journey than my last 2 London races!

The course was described as ‘multi-terrain’, I quickly learnt that meant it was 95% off road, not that that was a problem but there would be no PB’s today!  There was also a bit on congestion at the start where the paths narrowed but the organisers had set us off in 3 waves to make it less disruptive.  It was, however, flat and a beautiful course, we ran from Marlow through Maidenhead, Cookham & Bourne End to Windsor and it looked a bit like this…

 

and this…

 

There were boats on the river with people clapping and waving at us and there were a couple of areas with pedestrians lining the street to give us a cheer and a smile, everyone was lovely!

There were several shady areas through the trees but the sun was out and the heat was rising, together with the trail underneath my feet, I was starting to find it tough but I still felt fairly strong and found the power to overtake several people in the last couple of miles.  The finish came around and a couple of people shouted ‘go Clapham’ in the final stretch.  I finished in 1.50 and was tired & thirsty (sooooo thirsty!) but still felt pretty good which makes me less nervous about my impending 15 miler on Saturday.

 

I highly recommend this race – fantastic organisation, a beautiful course and a lovely medal, what more could you want?!  I had forgotten how much trail races take it out of you though…I’m back to the penguin walk today…

Look at my really cool medal!