The Ashby 20 came the day before a trip to Japan. Other than the Kyoto Half Marathon I knew I wouldn't run in Japan and was concerned about the affect of two weeks away from training so close to the London Marathon. I was keen to get another 'long' race on my legs in preparation for the London and knew that if I put my body through some effort I had an 11 hour flight the next day to rest and recover.
The Ashby race is run around two loops plus a bit more around a route in the shape of a pan. First you run up the pan handle then round the rim a couple of times before a final assault on the handle back to the finish. The advantage of a two loop race is that you get a recce of the difficult parts so you can mentally prepare yourself for the same parts during the second loop.
I enjoyed the Ashby 20. My ongoing illosas injury was in a mess at the end but I recovered over the next couple of days. I came home 101st out of 800+ in a time of 2hours 19 minutes and 52 seconds. The marathon calculator says I'm going to run 3hours 8 minutes at London, my sub three hour target is looking increasingly remote as an achievement.
All finishers at Ashby receive a 'hoodie' which is a nice alternative to a t-shirt. It came to great use at 35,000 feet as we flew over Siberia the next day and I got some sleep!
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