Endurancelife Coastal Trail Series - Stage 5

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Marathon Man

Pete Roper / 13.04.2010

Pembrokeshire to me was going to be a working weekend with Endurancelife. I was going over to Wales to work for a couple of days, not to run as I would normally, not to just turn up on Friday to register, but go to work and see what goes into setting everything up.

After an early start on the Friday morning the team cracked on with setting up the Event Base. Things were soon looking good on the finish and baggage area, as the two main marquee's were up and we had already started on things in the main hall. Course Planner Will and Event Director Gary were out marking the courses and all I could think about was getting a training run in, I was like a coiled spring! Normally on a Friday I’d have been at home and have pushed a 90 minute run out at 6:30am and by now I would have been on a weights session in the gym.

So when Andrew mentioned a run on the 10K course you can imagine how I felt! It didn’t seem long before we were running around the 10K course knee deep in mud. The course was awesome and you really had to work hard in places. The Marathon course was due to take in the 10K loop first. What a demanding first 10K before you’ve started the remaining 20 miles!

Now the only thing I could think about was running the Marathon as I normally would but I was here to work! I only needed one more win to take the overall CTS 2010-11 title. I also knew that Adrian Jones was running, another vet that I had battled with at Gower. So after a subtle word in the right ears I was able to run in the Marathon.

Early on the Saturday morning everything looked great and the weather looked good. Runners were gathering for the briefing for the Marathon and after a few words from Gary we were taken onto the slipway for the start. The start was going to be awesome as the tide was out and the first section took you across the sandy bay from Little Haven round to Broad Haven.

For the first part of this beautiful 10K loop we were running on sand and Adrian and I took off at pace. We were soon joined by Robin Houghton, the winner of the marathon at Devon who I had yet to meet. I had looked at the results from Devon and noticed it seemed quite a quick time. It wasn't long before the three of us were alone and before long the 10K loop was behind us and we were passing the start again for the next 20 mile loop. See All Event Posts