Man vs Horse

My first attempt at any sort of distance since the 50 mile today. Entered the Man vs horse marathon (22miles actually). It's one of the hardest courses I've done and was really hard. Infact soon after about 14miles my hamstring pain came back. It was hurting exactly the same way as the second half of the ultra, early! So deep down it was too soon but never mind. I just ran the whole thing with no kind of knowledge of time or any meaning to race so when it started hurting I just held back slightly before finishing a bit faster. It took 3hrs of running through the wind and rain which resulted in parts of the course being ridiculosly deep in mud! Toughy

First 8 miles I felt good except I missed the start as I was standing by the pub door from the rain so had to chase past a lot which took a while. There we are my own fault for not being man enough to stand in the rain! I then heard the first cry of 'horses' which was when a couple came racing past close - experiance! By the way if a runner beats the horse they get a £1,000!!! No one did beat one but I know last year the runner was less than a minute behind!! Felt ok up until the second checkpoint at about 14/15 but then my hamstrings started really hurting and I was getting a bit grumpy with the tough running under foot ha ha. Hit a bit of a bad patch for a couple miles before finding a rythum and speeding up to the river crossing at the end!! Thats pretty interesting after 22 miles. Anywey great laugh but the weather ruined the end and put a dampner on the run for me but never mind. That to the side it's well worth doing, even as a team of 3 which is very popular.

With about 10 runners from Cardigan RC taking part it was a good trip but weather definetly spoilt it. The event brings out the whole village and were usually greated at the end with all the local grannies making all the runners sandwiches which is great but today they looked as fed up as a runner who had run the whole thing!

Jason from the running club gave the whole thing (I say whole thing because running it as a team of 3 realy members is very popular) a go this year and did great so well done to him, I don't think he'd ever gone further than a half marathon except for the od training run. great effort!

Hamstrings are good tonight, I'll arrange another massage and dig in to a chicken chow main and I'll be good to fight another day but it did show today, I'm still not recovered fully, so I'll keep cycling for a little I think.