North Dorset Marathan in the words of Dave Webb

North Dorset Villages Marathon 2 May 2010

Standing at the starting line at 8.30 on a blustery Sunday morning there were 2 things making me uncomfortable. One was the sight of two of my fellow runners snogging like teenagers at a bus stop. The other was the creeping feeling that I needed another wee. This year there seemed to be more competitors and fewer toilets. The best thing to do was to start running.

I didn’t have a good experience here last year. I’d had a bad cold for several weeks beforehand, it was too warm, and I ran out of steam far too early. So I was pleased to settle into a comfortable pace, do the first mile in 7.15, not far from my target of 7.20, and tuck in behind a small group to shelter from the wind. I did have a cold again in the week before, but didn’t feel too bad, and had deployed a secret anti-snot weapon, namely peppermint oil. A drop rubbed into the bone behind each ear, and a drop in each nostril seemed to do the trick, though the other runners in the changing room probably thought I needed a drug test.

There were quite a few people on the streets of Stalbridge, where I don’t suppose there is much entertainment, and they gave us plenty of encouragement. As we left the town I was running near someone who seemed to be treating the race as the chance to perform a chemistry experiment. In the first few hundred yards I had stepped over 2 strange bags of orange gunge, which had fallen from a pouch in the back of his shirt. He seemed to have plenty more such bags about his person, as well as a number of bottles of fluid. At the 6 mile drink stop he spent some time gathering containers of water and pouring them into different bottles, which he then secreted in the back of his shorts. A little later he extracted another pouch of the orange gunge, bit the top off and spat it on my feet. I decided to get ahead of him before he got out his Bunsen burner.

I was on my own now, but feeling comfortable. I had thought there would be some familiar faces; when I entered this race, back in the autumn, I was one of 5 club members who signed up. Richard and Lesley dropped out when they realised that it started at 8.30, which apparently is too early for a postman. Then Charlie B got a London place in the ballot, and withdrew, so it was down to Phil and me, until the pull of the Knob festival proved too strong for him, leaving me on my own.

I got to 10 miles in 1.13.07 and realised that I felt better than I had at this stage last year, despite a stretch running into a stiff breeze, and more uphill on the course than I had remembered. The prospect of another 16 miles didn’t seem too bad. I reached halfway in 1.35.37, half a minute down on last year but feeling much better. A quick pitstop in a field gateway to lighten the load and I was off again. The next few miles are fairly flat and I was able to keep the pace up, then had the wind behind me for the stretch along the B-Road to mile 17, which had done me in last year.

As I went through 18 and 19 miles, still feeling good, I realised that I was on course for a good time. I got to 20 miles in 2.25.47, ran up the hills into Child Okeford that had been agony last year, and kept going despite about a mile into a strong wind. The last mile and a half is the cycle track on the disused railway line. I got to 25 miles in 3.03 and knew that if I kept running I would break 3.15. The last mile seemed to go on forever, and my legs suddenly felt like lead, but I was close enough to the end to keep going, albeit much more slowly, though I managed a marginal increase in pace for the last 200 yards. I crossed the line in a personal best of 3.12.55, let out a little roar of delight, and looked for somewhere to sit down.