46.96

‘It was difficult not to think about the distance I’ve covered or that I’ve never run farther than 37K.’

Photo by pɓd pɐɥɐɟ on Unsplash

The race I spent the entire summer preparing for took place in Sherwood Pines — a 15-minute taxi ride from the nearest town of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, a 2.5-hour train ride from London. We arrived on a Saturday and stayed overnight at a spacious Airbnb, where I prepared my snacks, ordered water for the race, and rested before the event. There is no Uber in Nottinghamshire, so I had to download the local taxi app and pre-book the race for 8:00 a.m. sharp. The next day, I was surprised when it came on time and cost merely 13.5 GBP to get to the forest.

The ‘forest’ is a large national reserve in the Midlands — which itself sounds as if it came straight out of Lord of the Rings — a national park with good infrastructure, a cafe, bike hire, and even a hotel with hot tubs outside (which, if I knew about, I would have pre-booked), where families and retired couples tend to spend humid UK summer weekends.

The race HQ was located in a hut alongside two white gazebos and had a black-and-yellow sign that said: RACE HQ, where we were registered, asked to fill out emergency information (always unnerving), then briefed and handed out special packs, giving the whole procession a James Bond vibe, as if at any time you…