Shindig in the Shire 2019

By Tasha Chandler - May 18, 2019

May 18th 2019

Half Marathon run

I found myself with a free Saturday morning (rare) and after managing a couple of weeks training post long term (3 month!) injury, decided to enter a race. More for the navigation and change of scenery than anywhere else as my local and fantastic park has been getting a lot of visits recently.

This race was organised by "How hard can it be?" events, and promised a low key and low faff race. In response to their name - pretty tough in elevation, but the profile was friendly, being largely up, then flat, then largely down.

The race could also be done as a two lap full marathon, and everyone started together. What I suppose were most of the marathoners all scooted off, and after a while the crowd thinned to a few ladies around me. The first few miles were very uphill, but once onto Wenlock edge, we had a chance for a bit of a chinwag until the first feed.

Not needing anything, I pushed on, and ended up alone for a few miles on a comfortable forest path, winding through the trees along the edge. I was a bit worried about getting lost as the tape being used as signs was not frequent, and I hadn't seen anyone for ages!

Relieved I was when I saw the second feed station, heading past again and onwards up the last major hill. Unfortunately here I really had gotten lost, ending up going backwards on the course somehow. I will blame the poor signage, as I wasn't the only one lost (retrospectively checking Strava we also weren't the only ones lost!). Having gone up a huge hill the wrong way, my solution was to ask the runners coming down what distance they were on, and turn around when we matched, which I duly did. I'm not sure how legit this was but I didn't have any confidence that if I turned back I'd be able to find the route anyway as we had clearly missed it the first time....

Back on course, I carried on down to a valley, then gradually up the other side, pleased to keep running up the final hill. At 12 miles I knew it was largely down as it repeated the first mile, so allowed myself to stretch my legs a bit on the grassy surface right to the finish.

On arrival I was told I was the first lady back for the half marathon, which completely surprised me. Very pleased though! I felt slightly guilty about my route error, but having looked at the results I was 10 minutes ahead of the second lady, and certainly didn't go wrong by anywhere near that amount.

Overall a great race, and I wouldn't hesitate to do another event by this company again. Turns out they have loads - I am particularly amused by the medal for their "July the turd" race....shame its on a Wednesday and I have parenting duties!