North Downs Way - take two. I tried to complete this route alongside the centurion 100 mile race in early August but it didn't work out that day and I dropped out.
This time 2 pacers and no crew.
I started at 5am 13th September from Farnham. Ran around 50 miles solo until I met Dan who paced up until around 80 miles. Mark met us at 80 miles, dropped Dan back to his car then returned to pace from 100 miles to the end. Dan joined us again on Sunday morning for the last 15 miles.
There were a couple of big rain storms on Saturday daytime then after that perfect conditions. The route is lovely. Lots of short sharp climbs but an great journey across the South.
My top target was to complete the trail. A secondary target was to creep under 30 hours. A few niggles resulted in a slowing of pace after around 100 miles so 30 hours went out of the window but I'm still very happy to get the whole trail complete after failing the first time around. We made it to Ashford for our prebooked sunday dinner in the pub with a couple of minutes to spare, perfect.
Dan and Mark were both amazing. Perfect level of support and an unbelievable amount of patience from guys who would normally be running at a much faster pace than this. Thanks both, again!