Race 25: Wakehurst Willow

Wednesday 19th July

8K - 43 Minutes Exactly

Aw- Beautiful Wakehurst. It’s one of my favourite spots in Sussex. It’s so beautiful. I love visiting it at different seasons to witness the changing colours. This is the second year of the Wakehurst Willow 8K race. I attended the inaugural race in 2016 on the hottest evening of the year when I wasn’t particularly fit. It was a real struggle that ended in a really disappointing time and heat stroke… this year HAD to be better!

The race fell on the day after the most amazing thunderstorms the South of England have ever seen. They rudely awoke most of the people I know at around 1am that morning with the constant flashes of lightening and torrential downpour of rain (not forgetting some extremely impressive thunder). It was actual a welcome sight (despite the rude awakening) as it meant that the temperature would be forced to cool down. At the start of the week it was looking like the run would be plagued with another heat wave. Thankfully evening temps were hovering around 19 rather than the 30 of last year with a cool breeze n the air.

We arrived at Wakehurst around 20 minutes before the start of the race and collected our numbers and headed to the start line. It was definitely one of the more chaotic/ amusing start line assemblies I have ever been a part of as we had to walk through the start line arches and turn back around to queue up to start. We were soon off and on our way following the windy paths of Wakehurst Place through their beautiful gardens.

The first K starts with a gradual downhill slope with a few smaller trees on either side. I was hopping up on the grass to get around the slower runners to try and find some runners with a similar pace to me. In the second Kilometre the race speeds up with a nice downhill section with some pretty - some parts steeper and gravelly than others! I took a moment to glance at my favourite view from the gardens being careful not to stack it while looking over my shoulder!

After a very steep down hill the race starts a more gradual climb up around the lakes and then a even more horrible climb which turns into a mega steep hill through the wildflower meadow (lots of beautiful blue thistles about at the moment!). When the path turned very steep I decided to slow to a (fast) walk as I was aware this was only lap one and my mile times were hovering between 8 and 9 minute miles which is pretty quick for me!

The second half of the lap is a bit less memorable- i remember lush green ferns and another unwelcome hill towards the millennium seed bank and then suddenly realising we were nearly back at the start (phew). I started lap two feeling pretty strong- if slightly sweaty. There was a nice little crowd by the start of the race so their cheers of encouragement sent me off for the start of lap 2 with a smile on my face.

I decided to keep my pace as fast as I could for the second lap. I’d prepared myself mentally to ‘smash’ my time of last year. I find it funny that I used to hate a lap race now I think a 2 lap race might be my favourite thing! The second lap ticked by and I ‘dug deep’ - urgh.. I hate myself but it’s true. I got hot, I got sweaty, I got out of breath but I just kept going.

The mega hill was not as welcome the second time around and I had to walk a lot more of it and it took a lot of mental strength to persuade myself to start running again once i reached the top. I picked a information sign as my landmark for starting to run again and I kicked my legs back into motion. It was a shame for me to see people have to stop and walk at the same hurdle where I had to slow to a walk last year- this is the sneaky hill by the millennium seed bank. I managed to get one guy running next to me again as he tried to keep pace but he fell away again- it’s so disheartening when that happens- I remember how disappointed I was last year when I lost my mojo in the last 0.3 Miles of the race!

Thankfully this year I still had some gas left in the tank and I took the last few wavy bends of the footpath with a smile on my face. I crossed the finish line with a little sprint and stopped my watch at 43 minutes exactly. This was a whole 5 minutes faster than last year which for such a short tough race I was pretty happy with!