It's gotten cold

FW Run

"Northern Lights" at Leazes park

1/2 mile back to hotel

Excess reduction run

My first Ultra, and having finished I'm very achy and tired but not ruined like after the Shakespeare Marathon 2013.  40th overall, of 139 runners. 69th place (median) took 6:00:00



We walked up the steeper hills, and our definition of "steep" got less and less strict during the second half until anything over 2-3% resulted in a walk break.



Stunning views on the downs especially, including an obelisk, a chalk white horse, bluebell forest, and dramatic sweeping steep contours.



The leg along the canal was quite fast which probably took more out of legs than we wanted. My bad.



8 checkpoints, each with water, juice, cookies, jaffa cakes, crisps, jelly beans or jelly babies. I had 2 jaffa cakes CP2-7 but only one at CP8.



The final 3.3 miles was nearly all flat or downhill, so we could actually run it which was a delight, even though still really hard work on exhausted legs. 5:16/km ( 8:28/mile) for the last leg.















At the end we got a locally made mug, plus a cooked meal with tea or coffee.















5:59/km moving average - taking out styles and short checkpoint stops

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Russell Finn

Marlborough Downs Challenge Ultra 2015

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It's gotten cold

FW Run

"Northern Lights" at Leazes park

1/2 mile back to hotel

Excess reduction run

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