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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