Bath Beat 2012

Last summer I decided it might be a good idea to contact an old schoolfriend. Through the wonders of Facebook, I found him and and we exchanged a few messages and he invited me down to Bath, where he now lives (we had been at school in St Albans). That sounded a good idea, but just a little scary. I hadn't been in contact with him for forty one years, would we still get on ? Would we still have things in common ??

I thought it might be a good idea to combine the visit with a race and looked around for a marathon in Bath and I found what sounded a lovely Long Distance Walkers Association (LDWA) event, the Bath Beat. So last Friday I headed down to Bath by train. I had visited the city previously for work reasons but never had the time to look around. I decided to do the tourist thing and go on open topped bus tour - my friend was not getting home until 6 so I had a bit of time to kill. The tour was good and also took me past the start of the race so it was enjoyable and useful.

Then to meet my friend.... I needn't have worried, we got on just as well as we did forty one years ago. We each reminded each other of events that had receded deep into our memories. When the other one of us mentioned them the memory popped up in the other. A very enjoyable evening.

The race itself was typical LDWA. Start anytime between 7.30 and 9.30 and they recorded your time as you left. I left on my own at about 8.40. No flags or signs on the route, just a route description and a gpx track which I had downloaded to my Garmin. I would have liked to have just followed that, but I had to use the route description as well because some of the checkpoints were unmanned and unmarked out there on the ground, so you had to be aware of where you were on the route description so that you could identify the checkpoint. How did they know you had visited the checkpoint ? Well you had to answer questions about it - for example, what is the number on the lampost, who is the bench dedicated to?

Lots of friendly walkers to pass on this event, but you couldn't rely on following them as there were four different distances and the routes were diverging and merging. If you have been to Bath, you will know its hilly and this route certainly covered some hills, even the fastest runner took over 4 hours to complete the course. We passed through some lovely countryside, attractive villages and very well stocked checkpoints, a great selection of food.

My legs weren't in the best shape after the Hull marathon six days earlier, so I took it easy, walking up anything that was going upwards. About three miles from the end I realised I could possibly get under 6 hours and I had over thirty minutes to do it in. Just keep plodding along and I would do it. However, there was a long killer hill near the end and that put paid to sub 6. A very enjoyable run :-)

I was planning to get the bus back into Bath but one of the organisers very kindly gave me a lift back Very impressed with that !

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Hull marathon 2012

Melanie and I travelled down on the Saturday as the race started at 8 and we certainly did not fancy getting up very early on Sunday morning, driving down and registering. There was a four hour window to collect numbers between 10 and 2 on Saturday, which wasn't the best times they could have chosen. This was the first running of this event and there were bound to be teething problems, but there did seem to be a lot. The route was hard to follow on the maps on the website, there was confusion about the start time, they used the wrong postcode for the start in one email, the leading runners were apparently directed the wrong way and ended up 3 miles short and one Fetchie missed out a four mile loop and no marshall spotted it ! The organisers need to polish things quite a bit of they are going to do it again. Having said all that, I enjoyed the race as those issues didn't affect my race. 

After collecting my number (and bumping into TripletDad who went on to run a great pb the following day 😀 we went for lunch in the Ferens gallery and looked around and then went on a museum tour. I lived in Hull for four years and have a lot of affection for the place, but it is thirty two years since I left and there were some bits I just didn't recognise. There lots of new bits for me such as the marina, the Deep and the promenade along the estuary (more of this later).

We were staying at the city Centre Premier Inn which was built on top of car park, so reception and the restaurant were on floor 7 with a view of the estuary and the tidal barrier on the river Hull 😀 Our room was on floor 12 and faced the same way 😀 So we ate in the restaurant and enjoyed the views. They also started breakfast early at 6.30 because of the marathon 😀

After breakfast, where I bumped into Plodding Hippo (it was the sort of event which attracted lots of familiar faces 😀) we went to the start and met up with my clubmate Andy80 and to our surprise another one, Y arrived and it was his first marathon. I think he only got the number at short notice, but Y seems to be able to adapt to most events and put in a great performance for a first marathon 😀 It turns out he has never run more than 14m before, amazing.

I started nearer the from than I would have liked so I hung back a bit and took it nice and easy. After a loop we returned to the start where I stopped next to M to get my base layer off and put back on my long sleeved Fetch shirt. I had thought it would be colder than it was, but I was already warming up and I knew I would not be seeing M again until about 20m.

After a fairly dull section on a road out of the city we turned to do a loop of the KC stadium grounds and I could see I was catching Y and it turned out he was sticking with the 4hr 30min pacer. I didn't have any ambitions for this race, though under 4ht 30min would be great outcome for me. So I decided to stick the pacer as well. It worked fantastically and there was a group of of about nine of us who stayed with him until about 18m. Then Y disappeared ahead into the distance, I stuck with him and everbody else had dropped off the back. It was great to let somebody else be in charge and to run in a group, not to surge ahead as I was tempted to. I kept a check on progress and it was good.

In the meantime, we had a bit of climb up the road leading to the road leading to the Humber Bridge and then onto the Bridge itself. It was pretty misty, we could hardly see the other side and the bridge is certainly not flat ! We reached the other side and returned on the other walkway. The pacer was keeping a steady pas as far as I could see, no change on the uphills or downhills. I realised before the start that I had left my S-caps at home so I was going to have to rely on shot blocks and I decided a disciplined approach was in order, one every twenty minutes after forty minutes. Again this worked well. In the first few miles my calves felt tight and I was concerned that they might tweak as they had done at the end of Kielder two weeks ago, but I got through with no problems.

We went into Pearson Park and did a loop there. This was almost offroad and was a welcome relief. Then came the worst bit a seemingly endless loop through an industrial estate. Finally we made it to the attractive marina at about 20m where M was waiting and it was great to see her and know there was not far to go. 

Soon after that to my surprise the pacer ripped off his pacer badge on his back and seemed to stop. I guess he must have developed an injury, but it was a bit of surprise and I had to wake up and take responsibility for my own time. First thought was, well I have run this far at the correct pace, I am not going to let it slip now, so determination drove me on.

At about this point we had a long out and back section along the estuary promenade. It was great to see other runners and some familiar faces coming back the other way. It didn't take me long to realise that they were suffering because they had wind in their faces.... So I needed to make all I could of the wind behind me before coming to the turning point. I had a lovely surprise when I got there. I heard shouts of Come on Fetchie long before I got there and the marshall turned out to be SodIron ! It was great to exchange a few words before heading back into the wind.

We finally turned off the promenade and headed back into the sheltered streets of the town. I tried to avoid looking at the distance on my Garmin and when we were running on a parallel street to the finish, I thought we might nearly be there. Sadly not, there was a loop to be done before we finally reached the finish. I came home in 4hr 24min 41sec and I was very happy with that 😀

Would I do it again ? Not sure yet, its too early to say

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