Saturday 26th February saw Katie Percival make her marathon debut at Bingley.
Calm conditions greeted Katie and her partner Rob as they travelled over the Pennines. Starting and finishing from The Fishermans Pub next to Bradford and Bingley Rugby Club the race ventured out on the canal towpath towards Skipton. By and large flat with the small challenges of the 3 and five rise locks.
Looking relaxed at the start she said “I have had a block of 18 weeks training and a good few 3 hour runs in the Lake District hills. I am looking forward to seeing the 20 mile mark and then going for it. It’s a lovely environment and I will just keep taking it in to forget about the pain.”
Katie absolutely thundered round in an amazing time of 3 hours 18 minutes which was way under her target of 3 hours 30 minutes.
After she got her breath back and some sustenance she couldn’t hide her delight. “ I wanted to rinse myself and I think I succeeded in that. At half way I knew I was going a little too fast but I couldn’t slow down ! It was just a case after the turn that I entered pain cave and I just had to treat it as 1 mile reps. I eventually saw the bridges which I knew were close to the finish and I put the burners on. What’s next ? I don’t know but maybe some fell racing – I will have to take some time out to think about that one.
