Eden Valley Ultra 50k

Running is just like life. You can't give up!

"Running is the ultimate metaphor for life. The more we run, the more we feel like the lessons we learn in running are lessons for life."

Eden Valley Ultra (Sept 11th, 2021), a scenic 50km ultra marathon set in the beautiful Kent countryside starting from Wilderness Farm (a single loop starting and finishing in Hever, Kent).

The route was on mixture of dirt tracks, woodland footpaths and country lanes. The course was predominately off road on public footpaths and wasn't particularly technical. Most of the course was undulating but with very few prolonged climbs, (Elevation 946m) making the course tough but very runnable.

After a relatively flat start to the first checkpoint at 10.6km, the following leg to CP2 at 26.5km was where elevation was found. 

I started feeling the fatigue after all that climbs and a bit of the heat (even though we had an overall cloudy day with a bit of sunshine here and thete with average temperature of 17 degree), and mostly due to not running /training properly for a such race.

Leaving Ide Hill, there was a faster section, with plenty of descent and a series of country lanes and flat sections which helped but I knew it would be a challenge after 30km as I felt under-prepared for such a race. Nevertheless, I was the 50th finisher out of 132 runners,  finishing in 5 hours 53 minutes. 

Thankfully, the final stretch of the race via Penshurst Place, had no major challenges 😀. The route was very well marked and the race was very well orgainsed with three aid stations/checkpoints for refuelling and we were required to record a time at each checkpoint using our timing wristband. The third checkpoint was in 40km.

Thanks to Runaway Racing for organising such a great race and thanks to all the wonderful volunteers for looking after us all day.

(I cannot forget running through a field where was this strong yucky smell of cow dung and all the bugs were crash landing on my head/neck. I just wanted to hold my breath and escape that field quickly but I was just so tired and couldn't run any faster! 😂)