Light relief…..

I’m feeling slightly light-headed as I sit down to write this week’s blog.

Could that be, because:

a) I’ve just completed four marathons in four days;

b) I’ve spent too much time with people who are more “mad” than I am;

c) I’m cross-eyed from scanning bus and train timetables;

or d) I’ve just retrieved my expensive and BRAND NEW Garmin satellite watch from the washing machine.

Tick any/all that apply. Any ideas?

Answers below:

a) Yes, correct! As you can see from the picture, I’ve passed another “finish” banner en route to my 50 marathons by age 50. Except this particular banner I passed four times in four days, each day having pounded 26.2 miles or more to get there. I was taking part in the Great Barrow Challenge in Suffolk – an event that incorporates four back-to-back marathons, with different routes each day, all self-navigating and including off-road sections. I clocked up times of 5:37, 5:25, 5:35, and 4:52 respectively. Day three was my lowest point, as I ran the entire route on my own, being either too slow or slightly too fast to keep pace with anyone else – then a few miles from the finish a small boy playing in his garden called out “Good Luck” putting a spring back in my step. Day four was the highest point – a lovely route around Newmarket and the racing studs and villages with exquisite chocolate box cottages, plus it was the final day and I did my best time. Heady stuff!

b) Yes, also correct. I think I’m slightly “nuts” for wanting to run multiple marathons and it’s fair to say most of my friends and family are of a similar opinion. But, I am a mere finger-popping monkey nut compared to the hard-coated brazils I met these last few days. To give you some examples: Phil, who I ran with on day one, has completed more than 650 marathons, including 40 in one calendar year; most people were well into their hundreds (marathons, not age!); some people had, on occasion, run two marathons in a day, one in the morning, another in the afternoon; and then, when Glen, the event organiser announced that next year’s event would be 10 marathons in 10 days, the response was, loud cheers (everyone else)!!!, silence (me)!!! As I say – in the nicest possible way, these people are hard core nut cases. Or to put it another way, if this had been a crime convention, I was like a petty thief mixing with the mafia. Scary!

c) Yes, this is true too. I made the journey to Suffolk and back by public transport with various stops (very excellent and welcome stops) with friends and family en route. This, however, did require a lot of mixing and matching of bus and train timetables, the odd taxi, and calculating how long it takes to walk pulling a heavy suitcase. I must have looked as if I was on a major expedition, prompting one bus driver to ask if I was going “anywhere nice?” Her face was a picture when I said I was off to run four marathons in four days. Then today coming back on the Waterloo line, with my husband John, we jumped on an earlier train. Great, saving an hour. Whoops, it didn’t stop at our local station. Hence, the taxi back to our parked car. Doh!

d) And hmmm, this is also a yes. Having got home, and put the kettle on, I decided to take advantage of the breezy sunshine and get some washing going right away. It was a good plan. Only I’d overlooked the other good idea I had earlier this morning, when in packing my case, I carefully wrapped my new Garmin in the pocket of my running jacket. I wondered what the metallic noise was rolling around the machine. When I got the washing out, out fell the Garmin. Oh dear!

Luckily it survived, well I think it has. And I survived too, after a fashion. What’s not going to survive though, is that glass of red wine waiting for me on the bar at my local pub……I feel that light-headed sensation coming on again!

Cheerio! Sorry if it’s overlong. Still, it’s not every week you run four marathons, or put a £200 sports watch through the washing machine.