Runner’s World UK – September 2019

090 RUNNERSWORLD.COM/UK SEPTEMBER 2019

FULL DISCLOSURE:

the creator of this

race is RW columnist

and former staff

member Sam

Murphy. I accepted

the invitation to review Sam and her

husband Jeff’s first attempt at race

planning because, unable to part

company with my inner adolescent,

I was hoping to discover all manner of

inadequacies and omissions to shove

under the noses of my two friends.

Sadly for me, but wonderfully for

crier, who finally released us with a

William Wallace-style battle cry.

We pounded our way out though

the Landgate, a 680-year-old

structure built to protect the town,

and into the countryside, where we

were to navigate a course along

mostly singletrack terrain through

woodland, orchards, farmland and

quiet country lanes surrounding

Rye, Iden, Beckley, Northiam and

Peasmarsh. A nice touch to the

planning is that each of those villages

has a Norman church, making the

race technically a steeplechase in

the traditional sense of the term.

I felt anything but a thoroughbred,

however, as I reached the 5K aid

station at the Domesday village of

Iden. Sam had warned me, with a

smirky tone to her emails, that since

75 per cent of the course was offroad

A RACE THAT MAKES THE GLADE

RW’s Kerry McCarthy runs through some gorgeous

East Sussex countryside in the Rye Ancient Trails

them – and you – the Ancient Trails

was one of the most enjoyable offroad

races I’ve done in 16 years of running.

There were two distance choices:

15km and 30km. I took the in-for-a-

pound longer option, strapped my

gaiters to my trail shoes and lined

up outside The George pub in the

middle of Rye, a medieval town with

a colourful history of smuggling and

highway robbery. In keeping with the

‘ancient’ theme, we were sent on our

way not by a gun or a horn but a

stirring call to arms from the town