Running the 2024 Langdale Half Marathon
My return to the UK’s toughest road run
I often think back to my experience running the Langdale Half Marathon in 2020. Usually, it’s when I’m running while the weather’s bad, or my travels have taken me to a particularly tough Parkrun and it’s with the thought that “well, at least it’s not as hard as that was.”
I had always thought that I’d get back and run it again someday, though, either because of some deep-rooted masochism I’ve yet to deal with in therapy or just because I’d like to try it in non-Covid conditions and maybe even get really lucky and have a day where Lake District weather was at the usual October levels of “you’re going to get a bit wet” rather than the horizontal deluge I experienced last time. Then back at the start of the year, I had an email from Brathay Trust, the organisers of this event and many others around Cumbria as fundraisers for their work, that the rising costs that are affecting all running events meant this might be the last year for it to happen, so if I was going to do it again it had to be this year.
(Since then, they’ve found new sponsors and it looks like the half and the Langdale Marathon will continue for future years. Fingers crossed, it’d be a shame for an…
