by Bryony Black
Hi – I’m Bryony – I joined Totley AC about a year ago, and I’m just loving the friendliness, camaraderie and the incredible range of events we can get involved with!
I also had a few running plans in place from before I joined the club, and one of those is coming up soon – my first Ultramarathon. I’ll be ‘running’ the Wolds Rangers Way Ultra on 25 April. But this article isn’t about that – it’s about a marathon I completed in March on a bit of a whim.
What is the Trails of Mena marathon?
It’s a really small event organised by First Light Adventures. It starts and finishes in North Wingfield, which is just south of Chesterfield. It’s a trail marathon (with a 20-mile option) that, in the words of the organisers, gives you “a combination of track, maintained trail, field and woodland and of course a healthy smattering of ups and downs just so you don’t get too complacent on the flat bits”. And it also includes a crossing of the motorway roundabout at Junction 29 of the M1 – a particular highlight for me!
Why did I do it?
Because my son told me that if I’m going to do an ultra then I ought to do a marathon as part of my training. And he seems to have quite a strong influence on me (he’s 14!). So I just searched for a local event that fitted in with my training timing-wise. I entered a fortnight before the event, which meant that I didn’t have too much time to get worried.
What was it like?
It was a really lovely event! Only 77 people did the runs – 37 in the marathon and 40 in the 20-miler. That meant a lovely, cosy feel to the whole thing, but it did also mean running alone quite a bit. Anyone I met en route was really friendly, though, and the organisers (with high viz vests labelled “The Big Cheese” and “Le Petit Fromage”) were very involved throughout. The Big Cheese did the photography on his phone!
There was a main 20-mile loop, and those of us doing the marathon did a second loop from mile 15.5 to 22.5 before rejoining the main loop again. I thought I’d be tempted to switch to the 20-miler when I got to that additional loop, but it didn’t enter my head on the day. In fact, splitting the race mentally into a 15.5-mile section, a 7-mile loop and a 4-mile finisher worked beautifully.
Most of the route was waymarked, and there were marshals here and there. However, they did ask you to make sure you had the route on your watch or a map, and you were expected to be able to find your way where directions weren’t given. This worked in my favour – a love of orienteering meant that what I lack in running pace, I made up for in not getting lost!
It was pretty straightforward under foot – just a few muddy fields, but mostly lovely paths and trails. I’d say the second half was tougher than the first – lots more field crossings and smaller paths. But maybe I was just tired by then!
The aid stations were fantastic. The people running them were so encouraging, and they provided all kinds of sweet and savoury snacks – probably more like an “ultra” vibe really.
It was one of those events where, at the end, you could just sit and chat with whoever was around whilst having a cup of tea and a piece of cake (although I couldn’t quite face cake at that point, unfortunately).
I left with a warm glow and a desire to do more of the First Light events.
Best things about this event:
- The route – lots of surprising paths and trails in an area I thought I knew.
- The size – I loved doing a small, local event and there were no queues for the loos!
- The aid stations – lovely people, amazing range of food and drink.
- Public transport options – I did a bus-train-bus combo to get home, and it was really straightforward.
Anything I might change:
Perhaps a bit of a Rent-a-Crowd at the end? It finishes on the edge of a housing estate, and lots of people were out washing their cars and wondering what we were all playing at – possibly not the grandest end to such a long run!
Bonus topic 1: nutrition and hydration
Don’t feel obliged to read this bit, but in case anyone is wondering about nutrition and hydration, this is something I’ve been working on for my longer runs for a while. I’ve discovered that I much prefer “real” food to gels and things like that, but I decided to use this event to try out a bit of a combination.
I watched a video advising me to set up alerts on my Garmin to remind me to eat and drink, so throughout the event, I was told by my watch every 20 minutes to drink something and every 25 minutes to eat something. Turns out I’m a bit of a rebel, though, and the alerts just became annoying! I did manage to pass the time by trying to work out how often the two alerts would coincide – harder than you think when you’re tired! I guess that in the end I probably ate every 40 minutes or so, and drank whenever I felt like it.
This is what I consumed:
Food (always worrying about running out of energy mid-run):
- Banana after about 6 miles.
- Handful of nuts (salt and vinegar flavour peanuts) after about 10 miles.
- Gel (Veloforte blackcurrant) after about 12 miles.
- Slice of pizza at a checkpoint on 15.5 miles.
- Fresh pineapple (definitely my secret weapon) at about 19 miles
- Another slice of pizza back at the same checkpoint on 22.5 miles.
- A few jelly babies towards the end.
Drink (constantly veering between fear of dehydration and fear of over-hydration!):
- Regular sips of water from a bladder throughout (probably up to about 500ml in total)
- Cup of squash at the checkpoint at 8.5 miles
- Cup of squash and a cup of water at the checkpoint at 15.5 miles
- Cup of water and a cup of squash at the checkpoint at 22.5 miles
- Emergency flat coke after about 25 miles (this tasted like heaven but left my teeth feeling like they would decay before I finished the run)
I’d say that my nutrition/hydration combo worked pretty well – I didn’t run out of energy and I felt fine throughout. I definitely felt that alternating sweet and savoury worked for me.
Bonus topic 2 – request for advice:
I still don’t seem to do very well mentally in the last 5 or so miles of these long runs – I seem to conk out and just randomly start walking for no good reason. I’ve tried out all kinds of mantras that friends use (“just get it done”, “your body can do more than your mind thinks it can”, “running is always faster than walking” etc…) but nothing has worked yet. All top tips gratefully received!