Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal Research Blogs -> LI Issues

Legal Research

: LI Issues

The agony and the ecstasy - Mount Ephraim 10k

Race bling!

Well time certainly flies when you are having fun and given how long it has been since I last posted Mount Ephraim 10k, which took place on the 23rd of August.

that would definitely seem to be the case. So to break the cycle of not publishing anything to this blog a short report here on the

First a bit about Mount Ephraim first, this is a beautiful location near Faversham, which we have previously visited and enjoyed, not just for the beautiful gardens and Arboretum, but also for the house where If I recall (it was a long time ago) we enjoyed some delicious cakes. If you are looking for something to do in Kent for a few hours then Mount Ephraim House and Gardens is definitely worth a visit. The gardens are best enjoyed in Spring and Summer, so you have some time to wait until you can visit unfortunately.

Anyway back to the race! Having visited Mount Ephraim previously I knew that the course wasn't going to be flat. I think the Mount in the name gives it away. However I was very unprepared for the "undulating" nature of the course that awaited me! Having found a nice spot for the girls to sit and watch the race I proceeded to the start line. This was a slightly odd start as we did a loop around a cricket pitch before heading out of Mount Ephraim downhill (the first downhill for a while) before turning right and up the first of many long hills! Fortunately there were some flat parts and I was running what I thought was a decent pace until I got to the base of the hill at 3.5 miles, which just went on and on and on and on and on and just when you thought it was going to end it went on a bit more until we reached 5 miles!

This hill was so steep that there were signs warning drivers to look out for rockfalls, we literally were running on the side of a mountain! There was also one slightly dangerous part of the course where the road had completely given way, perhaps because of rain, or perhaps because it was a a precipice with a sheer drop down into a valley.

Before photo...no after photos!

Fortunately I negotiated this hazard and from this point the course dropped down back towards Mount Ephraim so I was able to pick up some speed and in fact it was at this point that I ran my quickest mile of 6:53. Unfortunately I couldn't quite catch someone I had been following for a while, but I did pass someone in the last 200 yards which is always a good feeling, although I'm sure they wouldn't have been too happy about it!

Crossing the line with my family cheering me on is always a great sight and I finished (exhausted) in a time of 48:21. I was quite pleased with that given the nature of the course. My splits are below, as you can see that hill between mile 3.5 and 5 really killed my pace. Having said that I would definitely run this race again!

1 mi 7:55 -56
2 mi 7:45 0
3 mi 7:38 -41
4 mi 8:40 165
5 mi 8:26 83
6 mi 6:53 -170
7 mi 7:21 12

Full post as published by LI Issues on September 22, 2015 (boomark / email).