A Journey of a 1000 miles starts with a single step
Compton 20 - 2004
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Neolithic Marathon
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Further Reading /
Inspirational books
Touching the Void
Joe Simpson
It's not about the Bike
Lance Armstrong
The Lore of Running
Tim Noakes
Compton 20 - the first event I took part in
I had already entered the Neolithic Marathon for May of 2004 and Martin, a climbing/running friend, suggested incororating this in my training so that I had some experience of running in a race environment. Martin was also doing this in his build up for the London Marathon that year.It was certainly a useful experience, I felt as though I as being carried along by the other competitors. Admittedly there were some minor hold ups/slow downs as the field made it's way through the initial section of woods.
The field soon spread out and in fact much later on I could see no other runners, not for long enough to wonder if I had gone off route though. There were sections of the route where everyone was slowed to a walk going up the hills, I would guess that the people at the front probably ran up these, but they were well gone by the time I got there.
Finishing the Compton 20
I was generally quite pleased with my efforts, about half way though the field on my first event and with a time that looked quite promising for the Neolithic MarathonI do not really think of the events as 'races' as I have no prospect of ever being well placed and I started doing this as part of my recovery from severe brain injury, so finishing at all is just a bonus.
Based on my time in this event Martin predicted my time for the marathon as 4hrs.