Jack Oates - BEWL Water Marathon

The BEWL water marathon is in Wadhurst, near Tunbridge Wells in Kent, the marathon race consists of a mile loop to start followed by two laps of the BEWL water reservoir which is just under 13 miles with each lap being roughly just over 1000ft of elevation gain. There were 4 events on the day an ultra of 37.5 miles, a marathon, a half marathon and a 10km run.

 

The Hermes running company who run the BEWL water marathon put into place COVID friendly restrictions by numbers being posted out 2 weeks in advance to avoid congestion at registration, everyone was temperature checked before they were allowed down to the start to attend the race brief, if your temperature was normal a green sticker was stuck on your race bib. Then after the race briefing the start was a rolling start with people continually crossing the start line whilst maintaining a socially distant 2 metres. All drinks or food at aid stations were sealed e.g. bottles of water and gels or bars. At the finish you have to collect your own medal and there is no prize giving, prizes are posted out to avoid a build up of people.

 

I didn't really have a nutrition plan as such as I was planning to use this as more of a hard training run, so i only had a couple of handfuls of jelly babies before the start, 2 bottles of water during the race and a GU Tri berry gel with caffeine at 20 miles to give me a bit of a boost towards the end. Post race was followed up by a Frijj chocolate milkshake and a Chia Charge salted caramel protein bar.

 

The race went surprisingly really well as I felt pretty tired during the week after a busy one, so I wanted to try to negative split the race if I felt I was going ok because due to a lack of long runs, the longest being 15 miles for nearly 2 months I wasn't sure how my legs would feel, so i aimed for around 6:30ish mile pace for the first half so came through a 1:26 first half, I still felt good so on the second lap I upped the pace expecting to hit the wall but fortunately this didn't come! I felt really strong a ran the second half in 1:21 on a pretty hot day so I was really chuffed with how the race went! With the added bonus of getting a 5 minute course record and 22 minute gap to second place! As well as a quality fish medal!

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