As I said on Strava, it was the hardest race I’ve ever done. I started off feeling good and happy with my pace but after encountering the first (of many) areas of shingle and very large and sometimes deep puddles my enthusiasm started to diminish. By the time I got to the long beach section I was starting to flag somewhat and to cap it off the route had been altered apparently from previous years adding an extra 50 or 60 yards of soft shingle. My breathing was starting to struggle by now and thoughts of calling it a day we’re very high in my mind. I found myself mainly breathing from my chest rather than lower down as I needed to. After getting onto the very long and depressing Cooden Drive I opted for a run/walk strategy which helped a lot but was no way going to fix the problem. I stopped at the snack hut Hastings side of the Delaware to refill my water bottle and shortly afterwards Alice Tigwell caught me up and bless her she chose to run/walk with me the rest of the way. If it wasn’t for her I would definitely taken a hell of a lot longer or possibly not finished at all. I ended up 15 minutes later than I thought I could possibly had done but breaking that down to less than 1 minute a mile actually makes me realise that all in all that wasn’t as bad as I thought. Feel absolutely shattered this evening and looking forward to a couple of days rest.
Sorry to hear it didn’t go as well as hoped. We all have those days and it’s important just to move on and not let it effect your confidence. Sounds like it was pretty miserable from a weather and route point of view. On a positive note it’s still your longest run ever, so there is that to be proud of. Perhaps stick to distances of 13.1 miles and less going forward. Well done though Andy, you made it to the finish line and didn’t quit.
