Sunday, February 21, 2010

REF: -Long supported training Run – 28^th March from South Petherton from 8:40

Dear Runners

I would like to take the opportunity to invite any of your members along to our annual pre-London / Spring Marathon long training run of up to 22 miles on 28^th March

We have been organising this informal gathering of like-minded runners for the past 25 years now. This has always been held 3 or 4 weeks before the London Marathon, and is the final long run before training tails off. It is always difficult to cover this distance without help from someone of a similar pace or encouragement from more experienced runners.

Therefore we invite any of your club who would like to join in. We will provide drinks at approximately 3-mile intervals, encouragement and transport back to the start for those runners who can’t complete the full distance. Afterwards we will be laying on tea, Coffee and cakes.

We will set runners off at different times e.g. 4 hour Marathon times + at or near 9.00 and faster runners (3 hours and less at 9:30). This will allow us to keep track of all runners without too much spread in distance. Start and Finish is from the at the bottom of the village (with recycle centre).

The route will be marked and maps and route descriptions will also be available but shouldn’t be required.

This is also an ideal run for others who wish to encourage their Marathon runners by running part of the route with them. This is fine, but we have had problems in the past when we had a mass drop out at 15 miles. It would be better if some runners turn up later and run the latter stages, after all, this will be the parts that the runners will need the most help. The drink vehicles will have space for some of those who wish to start a few miles into the event but this can’t be guaranteed.

All we would ask is some idea of rough numbers of runners attending and if any one can provide any help please feel free. Further details will also be posted on our web site.

Regards Martin Cook