Steve Edwards in Brathay 10 Marathons in 10 Days Challenge

Brathay 10 Marathons in 10 Days Challenge - 7th to 16th May

Now in its 4th year, the Brathay 10 Marathons in 10 days Challenge involves running 10 marathons in 10 consecutive days around the same Windermere Marathon course, a complete circuit of Lake Windermere, England's largest lake. As a one off, this marathon could at best be described as testing, but over 262 miles, brutal!

Steve Edwards finishes 4th Brathay 10-in-10

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It was always going to be difficult going back to tackle a 4th consecutive 10-in-10; Steve's fitness wasn't anywhere near the level it was this time last year having been out of action in January and most of February due to injury. Steve had only managed to get in 10 clear weeks of training leading up to the event; a total of 600 miles compared to 1200 miles last time. However, it wasn't just the physical side of things that were going to be tough, mentally he was struggling to motivate himself as with the lack of miles knew Steve had little chance of bettering his Fastest Vet record time from last year. It was no surprise therefore that after the first 3 days where he'd managed to run consecutive sub 3:30s, that his times started to drift a little over that for the following 5 days.

On days 9 and 10, Steve did manage to get things back on track a little as by this time some of the Bourton support team had arrived to give him a much needed boost. In the end, he crossed the finish line on day 10 to record a cumulative time of 35hrs 6min 18sec for 3rd place overall. This was in fact Steve's second best performance at this event and gave him an average marathon time each day of 3hrs 30min 37sec. Considering the lack of training miles beforehand, Steve was pretty happy with that, although a sub 35hrs would have been sweeter, oh for those extra 6min 18sec!

At the awards ceremony, Steve declared myself retired from the 10-in-10 event, (at least next year anyway!) and came away happy that three of his four performances were in the top 6 of the all time list and more importantly his Fastest Vet Record of 33hrs 16min from last year is still intact.

Steve Edwards Awards Brathay

Windermere Marathon - 16th May

Steve said that the real highlight of day 10 this time was witnessing Teresa become a marathon runner. She started running a few years ago and could only run a few yards without getting out of breath and would never stop telling him that she would never be a runner. He's watched her progress since that time going from 4 mile fun runs to running a sub-2hour half marathon last year. Then on Sunday, she turned 20 weeks of hard training and a well rehearsed race plan into a great debut marathon.

With a sub 4:30 target in mind, Teresa proudly wearing the lucky number 500 maintained a 10min miling race strategy most of the way round to cross the line in an excellent debut marathon time of 4 hours 26 minutes, which on this course is a fantastic effort. She was greeted by a very proud and tearful husband, members of Bourton Roadrunners and many members of the 100 Marathon Club who had all come to witness this special day. Commenting afterwards, Teresa said “never again, I only ever wanted to run one marathon, so this is my first and last!”. But how many times do we hear that?

Bourton were also represented in the main marathon by Ian Shoemark who recorded 3:34:40 for 111th place, Nigel Frith who recorded 3:48:02 finishing in 207th place and Andy Peaston 4:04:30 in 359th place. All creditable performances on such a demanding course that saw 853 finishers in the end.

Steve wants to say a big thank you to all those that sponsored him over the last 4 years, including his family, relatives, friends, work colleagues, running clubs and also the corporate donations has received.

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2010 Progress

Total Time: 35:06:18

Day 1     - 3:24
Day 2     - 3:24
Day 3     - 3:27
Day 4     - 3:33
Day 5     - 3:30
Day 6     - 3:34
Day 7     - 3:37
Day 8     - 3:33
Day 9     - 3:29
Day 10   - 3:30

Daily Average   - 3:30.37

Steve was again raising money for the Brathay Hall Trust charity which makes this all worth while; Brathay’s work with disadvantaged children and young people from all over the UK is invaluable in giving them the confidence and life skills to make positive choices which ultimately helps them overcome the difficulties arising from their poor social circumstances. Registered Charity No. 1021586 and SC038803

You can still sponsor Steve via his Justgiving page at www.justgiving.com/run500

Steve & Teresa Edwards - Brathay 2010

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There is a photo gallery of the race contained on our Member’s Photo Library page; why not take a look?

Teresa Edwards Windermere Marathon2010

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The 2009 report is still available to read.

 

 

Other reports may be found on our recent race reports page.