Race Report: Excalibur Marathon 18/05/2013

I first heard about this race two weeks ago when my running bud phoned me excitedly telling me about a marathon in the Clwydian Mountain Range where we do our hill and trail training most weekends, so on that I decided to enter even though it did say it was the toughest marathon in the United Kingdom.

I didn’t have the best pre-race rest due to doing the Sandstone Trail ultra last Saturday and my car had packed in again so I had to run to work Wednesday, Thursday and Friday so my legs were tired to start with… never mind I thought at least I know the route. How wrong I was, so very wrong.

I admit I like to be early to a fault, so I got up at 6am got my kit together and headed off to Moel Famue in Mold in Wales for registration at 9am. I got there at 8am just in time to see the walkers set of at 8:30am so I registered got my kit checked and waited for the start which would be 10:30am. We were told that there are three waves sub 5 hours, sub 6 hours and sub 7 hours from a field of about 150 people who may I say looked very fit and athletic So knowing what lay ahead and how my legs felt like I thought I’d be safe starting at the back of wave 2 sub 6 hours, so first wave sprinted off like it was a 10k race then we set off… Go!

 

Well I have ran many a 10k race which started slower than this, everyone started to leg it I couldn’t believe it we were all running at what must have been 6:30 to 7:00 min/mile pace and I was just thinking nutters so I eased off the pace took some pics while running and thought to myself that I will catch them all up later when they have collapsed up one of the many hills, the first 2 miles were flatter around the forest.

I was right as that’s exactly what happened I soon noticed that the majority of people although they looked the part struggled with the severity and length of the hills on routes and every time we hit a hill I seemed to gain on people without too much energy loss so I started to enjoy myself and it felt just like one more long training run in the hills which I love, there were no mile markers anywhere to be seen and I don’t wear a Garmin so it was with genuine surprise that I got chatting to someone and he informed me we had 8 miles to go which cheered me up no end.

The Marshalls were really nice and friendly and the course was well directed around the mountain range with only one marker sending you the wrong way down a hill which did catch a few runners out, the race took you up and down every single hill, mountain it could find one minute you were on top of Moel Arthur then the next you were in the valley a very, very tough race by far the toughest route that I have ever ran.

The last 6 miles were tough climbing back up to Moel Famue and Jubilee Tower but once I had got to the top I knew that I had a short 1 -2 mile left to the finish which was downhill. That’s when the 4 people behind me tried to take my place from me so I dug in and did a last mile in under 7 minutes (approx.) and just got over the line in to beat the second women as I'd been pushed by this little group for the last 10 miles.

I finished in 5 hours 2 minutes with a position of 16th overall. To say I was pleased that I had just done a very tough marathon I'd also used my head and didn’t get carried away with the pack.

Thank you to the Marshalls who were great and the great camaraderie of all the runners which was second to none, especially to the butty van at 16 miles which gave me a can of pop for free and the local who told me the sign pointing through the gate down a very steep hill was in fact wrong saving me a long decent, and it was wrong it caught a few people out.

Would I do this race again? You bet, try and stop me, but this time I will have some Striders with me, so to all the Striders reading this set this date in your race calendar.

For more information visit the website.

Mat.