Wye Valley Ultra 30 miles
It was an early start toget to Ross but a beautiful day. The race started at 9am at the rowing club very cold but glorious sunshine. There were 60 runners taking part in a race with very ltlle navigation as it was pretty well signed, and not much kit to carry. We were pretty soon joined by Leigh who was taking part in his forst ultra, we all ran together for the first 13 miles.

The course was varied some road and a short climb on to The Wye Valley path which meandered through a woodland trail. We hit the road again and then turned on to the river path for a few miles. It was quite muddy in places but not too bad. Heading back out on to the road we came to the first water station at 10 miles before entering the Forest of Dean.

The run then took us another 5 miles along woodland trail to the half way point. This was quite hard running with long slow drags up hill to the turnaround point. We were making pretty good time and felt pretty good on the way back. the front runners had shot past us on their return a few miles back but the bulk of the field were still on the outward journey.

We went wrong shortly before 20 miles turning down a hill too soon and having to climb back up again, we lost a little time but most of all the momentum and we had to get back into the rythmn. Back on the river path it started getting much harder, the flood plains just seemed to go on for ever. Climbing back into the woodland we took a wrong turn and went off course again. Luckily we found our way back on track and caught up with some of the other runners. The hardest bit was at the end with about 3 1/2 miles of road back to the rowing club my legs were like lead, we rallied round and put in a sprint at the end, which meant negotiating Sunday strollers and pushchairs to turn into the rowing club for the finishline.

This was a very enjoyable race, mixed terrain, friendly organisation and a very welcome jacket potato at the end!