exe to axe 2011

the first official entry by an Ercall Stompers team. We entered this race off the back of some serious pub talk and Dave's adventures at the Grizzly Cub run. We must be fecking mad.
We left home at 5am and quickly ran into trouble on the motorway as roadworks made us detour through Wolverhampton. Yay that's a party town on a Sunday morning!
Apart from that it was a pretty uneventful ride down to Devon and we were there at about 8.30am. We parked up, said "hi" to the organiser chappie and then went in search of breakfast. Well, I did anyway, and I ended up stuffing my face with a bacon butty while Dave made do with the breakfast of champions, a cup of tea.
During the next hour Dave carefully got his mojo together and so took his place on the start line, waiting for the vuvuzela to be sounded to start the race..
..and so off he went on leg 1 of thei 20 mile/4000ft epic. Dave's bit was essentially flat and mine, well, wasn't. I took his car to Budleigh and waited for him to complete the first 4 miles, he seemed ok apart from stripping off his t-shirt for the camera .

He was soon off and running again while I dashed over to Sidmouth. Apparently there was a hill between the two, ok it did look like a fair old beast. I got to Sidmouth in good time, parked up and waited...by this time the runners were well spread but Dave eventually turned up in good shape, sprinting past the dummy in a diving suit that marked the finish line
After passing him my bag, camera etc, telling him where the car was, trying to tell the race recorder we were doing a relay I was off up Salcombe Hill. Climb, climb climb. And then I got to the first of the steps. Oh I was really cussing Dave by now as I struggled up. I managed to reel in a few 20-milers but my overall feeling was that I wished I had done some proper training, my legs were very quickly shot. Ouchy ouch. A particular nightmare was Weston Mouth - descent to the beach, climb back up the cliffs. Whats the point of that? By now I was on my own and worried I would get lost but the route was great, taking us along cliff tops where you could see the mist rising over your toes - this was magical. Eventually after what seemed like an age (it was) I rolled into Branscombe and after a drink (nice) and some jelly babies (made me cough)
I was off again up the climb towards Beer. As I approached Beer I could see Seaton in the distance. This had the double effect of cheering me up (seeing the finish) and depressing me (seeing how far away it was). But never mind. I managed to keep my aching bones going for one last push along the prom and pretty soon all was well, Dave was there to cheer me in and we got 7th place overall.

A couple of pints later in the pub and we were ready for the next adventure..