I was well up for a long run in the great outdoors today; I'd only managed to run twice this week (although both were brilliant explorations of Copenhagen's cycle paths) and was in need of some good exercise. The prospect of my first triple was a bit daunting, but I knew that taking it easy and trying not to think of the total mileage was the best way to handle it.
After an easy journey down from London to Eastbourse, the start turned out to be total mayhem - changing, loos and the bag drop were scattered all over the place, queues were epic and noone seemed to be in a very good mood. With the teeming rain and the stiff hill to get us going, it wasn't the best start but at least I met a few marathon buddies including a couple of the other "triplets".
The first few miles of the race were pretty congested and I was finding it hard to get into a rhythm even though it wasn't that tricky underfoot. After mooching along for a few miles, Heather caught up with me. It was great to see her and have the company as I suffering serious CBAs today. Last week, each mile flew by and this was really dragging. The visibility was terrible too as we were running through thick mist so we couldn't even see any of the famous views. At times you couldn't even see people 20 yardas ahead of you, even those in high-vis shirts, which got a bit eery, and made you a bit wary of running off the cliff edge... I confess the course was really boring me and I was struggling to find motivation to do anything other than plod round. At least on a boring road marathon, you can switch off the conscious brain and let your mind wander, off road you have to concentrate on every step.
The weather was seriously deteriorating and by mile 10, about 2 hours in (yes, it was slow), the wind was howling and was driving the rain into our faces, stinging our eyelids and reducing the vis through screwed up eyes even more to just in front of your feet. It was horrible. Thank god it was a warm day for October, or I could have been in trouble in shorts and a long sleeve top. We slogged on and Heather really kept me going, as did the wonderful British humour with people coming up with all sorts of variations on "It's a lovely day for a stroll by the seaside".
Just before a truly magical checkpoint with cups of tea and sausage rolls, there was a particularly slippery bit of mud. Heather and I managed to take the boys' minds off the pain for a few minutes by wondering how well-suited it was for mud wrestling, being very smooth and clayey and free from grit. You don't want grit if you're mud wrestling. Oh no. The sausage roll and cup of tea were indeed magical, I've no idea why this isn't the sports nutrition of elite athletes, and the never ending roller coaster of the Seven Sisters sent us slightly hysterical. We completely lost count of how many sisters we'd done, and I missed Beachy Head, unless it was that hill with the horse box water station perched on top, we were too busy lurching up the hills, falling down them and wondering where on earth the giant poos came from. We decided it had to be brontosauruses. Yep, we'd lost it.
The last mile or so was a lovely downhill over grass, with that steep hill to finish it off. I do hope there was a video camera there because it was so steep, grassy and slippy I bet loads of people ended up on their arses. We came over the line in 5 hours 26 minutes, pretty damn slow but I couldn't care less, I've got two more days to go and I reckon tomorrow's going to be even tougher.
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