Visit and race in Kielder

This weekend, Train4 Body&Mind travelled to Kielder. We packed our running gear late on Friday and travelled south to the Scottish Borders. Irene and Mario were competing in the Goshawk 50K and Kielder Osprey 50 miller ultra from High Terrain Events.

We stayed in one of the pods at Kielder Campsite. We met Steve, who was incredibly helpful and welcoming. Steve you are a legend!

We went to the pre-registration to get our bib numbers and say hello to our friends from the High Terrain Events. Later, we returned to the pod and had dirty vegan burgers for dinner, our pre-racing "star dish". After stuffing our faces with food, we went to sleep early to be rest for the race the following day.

Mario's race started early in the morning, at 7:30 am. At the beginning of the race, the skies opened up, but the rain only lasted for an hour or so. Irene started her race at 9:00 am. Both races began at Kielder Castle, went directly to Kielder Wood, and then circled arround the lake.

Both races went smoothly, and Irene and Mario felt strong and were leading their races. Irene and Mario efficiently managed their energy and were able to sustain a constant pace throughout the race. Their fuelling strategy consisted of a combination of Maurten and High5 gels every ~45 minutes, drinking plenty of water. Pre-race both had had a drink-mix-320 from Maurten. Mario also added in some solids during his race as it was longer, which included nuts, crisps and a protein flapjack from Trek.

Irene finished in just 4 h 49 minutes, placing first globally among females and winning a well-deserved beanie hat from VAGA. Woop woop, go Irene!

The race took slightly longer for Mario. At the K~60, he took a wrong cut and ended up doing 5 K extra! Even then, he managed to finish this challenging race in 9h 11minutes, placing 7th globally! Well done Mario, especially after adding some more distance to the already long race!