Runner\'s World UK - 09.2019

SEPTEMBER 2019 RUNNERSWORLD.COM/UK 091

PHOTOGRAPHS: RUPERT FOWLER

RYE ANCIENT TRAILS

and there was 500m of climb across

the undulating route, my training

technique, which I like to call The

Last Chance Saloon Method, might

not cut the mustard this time.

She was right. As I munched on

some delicious locally made biltong

and got my breath back, it occurred

to me that as much as we runners

love to salivate over fantastic-looking

trail races abroad (see the World’s

Best Races supplement that’s free

with this issue), there is plenty of

gorgeously gnarly offroad stuff to

be experienced here in Blighty.

From there, the race became one

of those sensory-assault experiences

where the precise details escape

your recall afterwards: you’re not

quite sure which bits happened

where: which aid station had the

amazing bread-and-butter pudding

and which had the superb local apple

juice; between which kilometres the

zen-like stretch through cooling

woodland was located; where exactly

we’d run past the deer and the 12th-

century church; how many gates

we’d passed through (35, it turns

out); where Jeff, on marshal duty,

had diplomatically clapped as I

lurched past; and where, exactly,

that large bloody climb had been in

the final 5K or so.

But I do know two things. One:

my running style moved downwards

through the gears from a bound to

a lollop, then a waddle and a brief

period of shuffling before finally

settling into a stagger that saw me

to the finish line on the playing fields

at Rye Sports Centre. Two: as I lay

on the grass with my bespoke Rye

Skyline finisher’s medal around my

neck and a pint of free, cold beer

from the Three Legs Brewing

Company in my hand, I knew I’d been

in a race, and that I’d loved every

glute-jangling kilometre of it.

My colleagues will tell you that,

after over a decade at Runner’s

World, I have an aversion to the

phrase ‘by runners, for runners’

as a shorthand stamp of alleged

quality, having read it more often

than one man should reasonably be

expected to in a lifetime. As I sat

guzzling leftover bread-and-butter

pudding and beer (it’s who you

know), it occurred to me that this

is an event to which that phrase

can be applied without being either

platitude or exaggeration. Go and

do it; simple as that.

The inaugural

Rye Ancient Trails

race in East Sussex

was pretty hard on

the soles in places, but

it was a feast for the eyes

and midrace nutrition

hit the spot, too

RACE

THE RUNDOWN

Rye Ancient Trails

(30km),

East Sussex

(2018 stats)

First man: Andrew

Donno, 2:20:24

First woman:

Melanie Stemper,

2:32:36

Last finisher: 5:10:31

No of finishers: 136

(+ 105 in the 15km)

Finishing stats

● 2:00-2:59 24%

● 3:00-3:59 56%

● 4:00-4:59 18%

● 5hrs+ 2%

This year’s race is on September 8.

Visit ryeancienttrails.com