Anyway, enough of that. We went down on Saturday as neither of us fancied the 5am start this year. The only reasonably-priced place to stay though was in Exeter YHA. We kipped in a dorm which had an air of the film The Great Escape about it - on closer inspection the bunk beds would appear to have had some of the slats removed, presumably for the tunnel (which we never found..) Still, a few beers seemed to make it all go quite swimmingly and take the pain away!!
Up early, and after a hearty YHA breakfast we went to the race.
We were doing it as a relay, neither of us fancied or had trained for the whole race. Dave tried to convince me that the 2nd leg (Sidmouth - Seaton) was about the same length and difficulty as the 1st leg (Exmouth - Sidmouth) but the organiser laid waste to that hopeful claim by telling the assembled company at the start that this wasn't so and that the 2nd half was quite a bit harder(insert smiley with sticky-out tongue) (ah yes, this one )
Due to Dave's recent battle with injury, his chances of beating last year's time of about 1.57 were very low but with an optimistic heart and under the bluest of skies and seas he set to his task, while I was left to dash to Budleigh Salterton (4 miles) where I was to provide drinks, camera and, if needed, a motivational speech. He got to Budleigh in good spirits, I began to get a little concerned he may have gone off TOO quickly and the wheels were going to come off. I zoomed off to Sidmouth and the start of my bit.
As my estimated start time loomed, I began to get a little worried for him but I needn't have - he came bounding along the prom almost a minute up on last year's time. We had a chance of beating the 2011 time after all!
I set off immediately uphill, then on to the cliffs where it just seemed like climb after climb, many on steep steps which was hard to get any running rhythm at all. There was a steep drop to the beach with a ridiculously but mercifully short stretch on the pebbles before a stiff climb back up. But hills aside, it was dry, the running was good and I was reeling the others in and feeling pretty good. At the drinks table at Branscombe I made the mistake of taking orange juice which aggrevated my asthma a bit but I pressed on, knowing that Seaton, and the finish was just round the next bay. By the village of Beer, all was going well and I stopped for a brief chat with a very excited Dave who was positively jumping at the prospect of beating 2011's time . Just the steep steps and climb out of Beer, and once at the top it was almost downhill all the way to the finish. I misjudged the last half mile along the prom a bit, I picked it up a bit without knowing where the finish was (novice mistake ) but anyway I got in in good order. I checked the watch and to my amazement I had knocked 14 minutes off my time for last year, we were 15 minutes quicker in total. Wow.
So, we were in celebratory mood all day. This was made even better, if that were possible, by our finishing 3rd relay team overall, a virtual podium finish made even sweeter by the fact that my running partner is (a very young) 65 years old. But as he's only 18 in his head, he's talking about going back next year to challenge again...
all my pictures are here on photobucket
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