A trail a day keeps the running blues away!

GoodGym Does Tough Runner Pacing

On an overcast Saturday morning, three Goodgym Cardiff runners, Ben, Adam and Martin, supported by Lucy, turned up at Porthkerry Park, Barry to pace run the Barry Epic 10K Trail. The park was bussing with excitement coupled with a little trepidation, as people surveyed what they could see of the course and looked to the sky to observe the weather conditions. It had been raining and parts of the course were possibly muddy.

Ben, Adam and Martin found Adam, one of the race organisers who supplied each of them with pace runner t-shirts for the run. Martin had originally volunteered to pace for 70 minutes but on discovering that wasn’t an option and enticed by the prospect of a free t-shirt happily agreed to pace at 65 minutes, which meant a quick bit of recalculation of the pace at which to run. Meanwhile Adam had come prepared with the pace per mile carefully calculated and written on his arm. Pacing trails with hills is very different to running on the flat, as every mile is going to be different; therefore, you need to account for being slower in certain sections and slower overall.

Very soon, people gathered at the start of the run for the briefing, and a few minutes later, we started, with Ben right at the front, pacing at 45 minutes, off to a flying start. The first mile or so was fairly flat, but very soon the going got a little tougher with the first uphill section leading to the top of a ridge. Again, at the top, the going was reasonably flat, before the first downhill section, where runners had to be careful of their footing over the slightly uneven terrain. After the downhill section, the run remained flat until about 4 miles in, when we came to some steps. By steps, I mean like a hundred or so steps, on a brutal uphill section of the run. We continued along the ridge before another downhill section where runners had to be careful again of their footing. The race looped around the first uphill section again before finally continuing along the flat for about 400 metres or so to the finish.

Running into the finish felt great with people at the sides cheering and supporting enthusiastically. This run was tough, but great fun and gave us a sense of enormous satisfaction at the finish. In conclusion, the race was brilliantly set out and well planned, with the marshals doing a sterling job. Highly recommended but the next time I will wear trail shoes ☺