Good, low key event - friendly, efficient organisation. Well done to the Rural Running crew.
Good beginners ultra
Really enjoyed the run, nice fast course.
Will start with a slight negative, a lot of standing around in the cold at the beginning, would have been nice to have a HQ to go in, bus got there very early so stood outside from 7am. If it had been lashing with rain, not sure how we would have stayed dry.
As for the race! a lot of urban running which may or may not be a personal preference. I didn’t mind to much, it can go the other way, where you’re running with nothing around you for miles and it feels so monotonous.
CP’s spaced out perfectly! Broke the run up into manageable chunks. The volunteers were in good spirit and that includes the finish line. Great to have someone shouting you on as you cross the finish, lovely atmosphere. On a side note, CPs were a little limited, some coke, crisps bananas etc would have been nice. I did notice some runners not carrying a lot of stuff, so they may have struggled.
Route instructions were fine, any getting lost was more down to the council not having a road sign up at key junctions!! Like the idea of giving stage instructions out at each CP. if weather was bad holding 5 pages of A4 would have been a mess.
Overall I really enjoyed it, well organised, great to have the transport from the finish to the start. I guess for me the biggest issue was just the lack of cover at the start. That’s not a reason to not run or recommend again, I will just come more prepared.
Paul Carse
Nice run with great, varied scenery around different towns of hampshire.
Using the strava app for navigation for me was incredibly useful for the first half of the course.
A top first ultra for rural running, just the right amount of toughness.