Category: Race Report

3 in 3hr Challenge – The Final Part

Snowdonia Marathon

by Stuart Blofeld

So as I write this it was over 12 months since I started training for the 3in3marathonchallenge. This challenge finished on 27 October as I completed the Snowdonia marathon.

Attempting to run a sub 3 hour marathon at Snowdonia was always going to be a very tall order. Was it even feasible that I should dream about such an audacious goal? Well probably not but that’s what dreams are for isn’t it…  To motivate you to keep pushing and reaching for the impossible. This was my 8th consecutive Snowdonia marathon. My fastest time to date was 3:16 set in 2016 and my slowest was last year in 3:50. So I was looking for a 50 minute improvement!! Hhhhmmmm…….. read more

Off to Rugby……… for a Run

Ten mile races seem to be in decline. There’s a few kicking around, such as an excellent one that is put on in Leighton Buzzard each September, but whereas there are 10Ks and half marathons around every corner, finding a ten miler can be quite a challenge.

However, in my view it’s a great distance to race. The easy maths of ten miles giving you obvious ten minute target blocks of 120 down to 50 if you’re super fast. It also nicely fills a large void between the two distances mentioned above. For whatever reason though, for us to find one for our club champs always involves a bit of travelling and this year we thought we’d try a new one (to us) in the shape of the Rugby 10. read more

Warsaw Marathon

PREAMBLE (PACING STRATEGY) 

The Warsaw marathon took place on 30th September 2018. My second marathon of my #3in3marathonchallenge for the year.  The challenge is to run each marathon in under 3 hours. To recap Brighton in April I ran in 3 hours and 5 seconds! The challenge for Warsaw was to find those extra 6 seconds but of course I had much grander aspirations than that. I use to think (until this marathon) that we owe it to ourselves in every race to always push ourselves to our absolute limits. To realise our full untapped potential. I would of course be extremely pleased with a sub3 this weekend but training had been going very well following Brighton and posting PBs since then in 5K, 10K and half-marathon distances. All the signs were very good and I was confident of running quite a bit faster than 3 hours.  read more

Leighton 10 2018- No Rain, No Gain

Leighton 10 2018 – Not a washout!

After last year’s large field and “miserable” conditions, this year was even bigger and even more miserable! With a summer of sun a distant memory and a week preceding the Leighton 10 of dry weather it was almost inevitable that Sunday 23 September would be wetter than an otter’s pocket.

The roads were emulating streams as the volunteers arrived to put out the mile markers and set up the drinks stations, but with the runners arriving too, their enthusiasm was not washed away. read more

The Mack is Back – Berlin 2018

Berlin 2018

by Peter Mackrell

Berlin 2018 was my 18th marathon and my 3rd Berlin. Germany’s capital has been kind to me down the years, in both 2013 and 2015 I ran PB’s there and my 2015 time of 2:33:35 broke a long standing club record, only for Elliot to take it off me shortly after by a handful of seconds! He subsequently improved it to 2:32:35, exactly a minute ahead of my time.

Following that 2015 run I was convinced I had more in me but then in 2016 and 2017, nothing happened to suggest that I did. Regular niggles meant I went into marathons not fully prepared and at one stage I completely missed seven months due to a combination of injury, studying, and a bit of loss of love for the sport. I began to think I was ‘past it’. The problem is, I’m stubborn and I like proving myself wrong. read more

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