Waterways 50

After a very busy year at work to date I found myself without a qualifying 50 for the 2016 LDWA Hundred, so looking through the SIEntries website I found this event in the Retford area, which seemed ideal. As it turned out it was an odd event but very enjoyable in its own way. Canal towpaths and river banks for almost all the route, one checkpoint had been moved which added 3 miles to a route which was already 54 miles! Mild weather and little breeze made for good running and I felt happy that I’d kept the running up until the end.

Good provision at the checkpoints but very little at the end – just a bowl of microwaved vegetable soup. The organisation was a little sloppy and route-description non-existent, but I’d done my prep and knew the route apart from a few diversions not evident from the OS Map (and not mentioned by the organisers).

The course was flat – very little you could call a hill anywhere on the route – and mostly along good paths and trails. I especially enjoyed the night running and teamed up with a lady called Lisa from Hampshire – we ran more or less together for the last 20 miles and she was great company.

I was very comfortable with the distance and my shoes – the Leadville 100’s – were comfortable and coped easily with the mostly hard surfaces.

The 50-mile distance was running alongside others of 30 and 100 miles and in a review later the organiser admitted his resources had been stretched to cover all this and stay awake for three days!

In the end I really enjoyed this run and will look to do it again. So, thanks to the organisers – I’ll be back.