Days that make a difference

I’ve been wanting to complete a marathon for quite some time, but it had to be the right one, so after about a year of exploring different options, I finally signed up to the Cotswold Way Mighty Hike, containing a section of the National Trail starting from Wotton-under-Edge in Gloucestershire where the route then follows the Cotswold Way escarpment before finally descending to the World Heritage Site of Bath and finishing in front of Bath’s famous Royal Crescent 26 miles later.

I had spent the previous 3 months diligently training for the event, culminating in at least two 23 mile training sessions on the final week, and was quietly confident of being successful when I arrived at the starting location on a cold, misty morning just before 7am for registration to commence. Being one of the first people to arrive I was given a yellow wristband which placed me in the first pen. After a brief warm up session involving a laughably bad attempt from me at Zumba, there was a countdown, before the ribbon holding us into the pen was pulled free and finally on Saturday 23rd July at about 8am I started out on my first ever marathon.

It was a really well organised event, with volunteers from both Action challenge and Macmillan themselves marshalling and accompanying us on the walk itself.
Despite, a worrying episode towards the end, where I was having dizzy spells, and had to sit down for nearly 40 minutes just after the 25th mile, to rehydrate and get some rest, I finished 182nd out of 376 finishers (At least 50 dropped out during the event ) with a reasonably respectable time ( given how extremely hilly the route was) of 10 hrs 43 minutes and 55 seconds, while at the same time, managed to raise a total of £332.50 for Macmillan Cancer Support.