18th May 2014
After much ‘umming’ and ‘ahhing’ over whether I would be
able to organise any days off work to make it all the way from Eastbourne to
the North West and onto the Lake District or not, I decided that it was worth the
effort of organising (that was a mouthful!). Windermere Marathon started it all. It's where all the
madness started and when the ‘marathon seed’ was planted. I also get
complimentary entry from completing the 10 in 10 in 2011. If this wasn’t good
incentive enough, I also knew a few friends participating in this year’s 10 in
10 challenge and making my way up north also meant that I got the see the
family and I got to go to a lovely part of the world for a weekend 'break'. So, I got the train to London, from
Eastbourne on the Friday and me and George travelled up to Chester from London
later that same afternoon. Then on the Saturday morning, we drove to the Lakes
with my parents.
Once we had reached the Lake District, we drove to Newby
Bridge (almost half way point of Windermere Marathon) and cheered on the of the '10 marathons in 10 days’ runners. It definitely brings all of the memories
back. We said hi to a few people and stopped for some food and a drink before
making our way to Brathay Hall to pick up my marathon number.
We also managed
to sneak in a little wander around Grasmere on the Saturday, before making our way
to the hotel – which was lovely and situated in Near Sawrey – the home of Beatrix
potter. That night, we had some lovely local food at the pub in the village,
which also happened to be Beatrix Potter’s local! The views were beautiful around
there. It isn’t hard to see how she
managed to come up with Peter Rabbit; there was so much wildlife and bunnies
everywhere!
On Sunday morning we got to Brathay early and saw the 10in10
runners go off I saw lots of familiar faces and had a giant catch-up with
everyone. Once we were off, I vowed to try my best, but I didn’t want to go too
fast. I was really aiming for anything around the 4hrs 30 min mark. After all,
Windermere is a hilly place and I had GUCR to think about the following week. Nonetheless,
I decided to run as many of the hills as I could. And relish not being quite as
slow as I used to be. It was a hot day, so I didn’t push it too much. In the
end I was extremely pleased with a finishing time of 4hrs 24 mins 35 secs. I
even got a suntan. And lovely George was stood there at the finish with a pint
of ale for me. He’s so thoughtful :)
This blog is dedicated to Badger who we sadly lost (literally) during our adventures in the Lake
District. He is sadly missed by me, Fox, Grey Mouse, Brown Bat, Black
Bat, Penguin and Hedgehog! We called up the hotel to help track him down, but I
fear we will never see him again. Hopefully he is now living amongst the bunny
rabbits. Bye bye ultra-buddy Badger! x
