A race called Grizzly

I took part in the 2008 Grizzly. It's a race across a variety of terrains (all of them horrid) which is now about 19 miles in length, though the race varies from year to year for operational reasons. There were about 1400 starters. The race is always fully subscribed so you have to enter quite early to stand a chance of getting in. The question that burns a hole in your head is why would 1400 people develop such insanity simultaneously?
The start is on the sea-front at Seaton, Devon, a quiet and pleasant place to be on a sunny morning in March. I travelled down to Seaton with Allan Cox, a member of Corsham Running Club and also one of my work colleagues. Seaton was still quiet when we arrived though the streets were quickly filling up with people in strange attire and talking loudly about PBs and racing flats etc.
Then the real noise started and the sleepy residents of the town were shaken from their slumbers by the Tannoy.
Soon the front was rather full and people were gathering at the start line (still being hastily marked on the road with a chunk of rock-chalk) I managed to bump into a few of the other Chippenham runners who had entered, Bumble, Nelo, Dave Jones, Sue and Tom and there was time for a crafty 'pee' in the sea (working on the theory that there is no-one out there whose decency I might outrage - it works at Weston Super Mare too) Looking around me on the start line, there were all the usual suspects but worryingly most were carrying drink bottles, wearing 'bum-bags' and sporting gel sachets pinned to their racing vests. In contrast I was not carrying anything edible. This did little to calm my nerves, though the nerves were soon forgotten as someone sounded the 'off' and we were all tripping over each other to get going. The race immediately turned left onto the beach, a shingly affair with a steep slope and big waves crashing against it. We turned through 180 degrees and headed east for about a quarter mile, some of the runners so far down that they were almost in the sea (some were even less lucky) while some runners were high on the shingle trying to run on the very biggest of the stones. Which is best? - I never found out but soon we were leaving the beach and pounding amongst small craft over-wintering high above the water on the 'hard'. Then we came back through the start area and set off for Beer, which means a wicked steep climb over into the next bay.
I had never been to Beer before which is odd, given that it has a youth hostel and sports a name I might normally be attracted to. It was a steep and slightly worrying place. Off-road shoes are quite poor when worn on tarmac and the road was slippery.
Beer is a small place and we were soon through it and on our way up through a static caravan site, a steep place with a huge view. (The whole area has a similarly comprehensive view of the caravan site which is a bit of a shame but it brings in holiday makers in a place with no industry)
Above the caravan site is a flatter area, agricultural in nature, which was hugely enhanced by a Scotsman (to judge by his attire) playing the bagpipes to everyone in the neighbouring fifty square miles. Excellent! I forgot to suffer briefly though we were all breathing quite heavily after the first few minutes of the Grizzly.
The fields continued and we were treated to superb views of the Devon coastline stretching way ahead of us. Then we started to descend quite sharply and we arrived at a beach; it is Branscombe where the course had been crafted to send 1400 willing idiots through almost waist deep water. Luckily my waist is higher than most...
At Branscombe a man was standing on the roof playing a saxaphone. We ran past,trying not to look surprised.
The next hour or so was spent up hill and down dale through woods and fields with all-too-frequent visits to boggy morasses. In one bog I pulled myself out using the over-hanging branch of a small tree which cracked and collapsed under my weight, making me no friends at all amongst my fellow strugglers.
We ran into a farm-yard where there was a drum band playing a thunderous but unrecognisable tune. Shortly after this the sky darkened and it grew colder. Hail started to beat down like machine gun fire. I could hear squeals and groans from all around. It really was painful and it went on for quite a while. Of course it did end eventually as we dropped down into a wooded valley, having passed the farm with the drummers again.
The miles passed by, many with mileage markers -useful, if only to tell how much more hell to expect. A sharp descent led to a dash through the patio area of a pub and for a few short seconds applause filled our ears and it was necessary to dodge someone carrying a loaded tray of drinks. Beyond the pub was tarmac but that was one of the hardest parts of the course, a serious climb which saw all around me walking.
A woodland climb had me puzzled. I could smell incense, not a normal woodland smell. As we mounted a sticky wooded track there was a Buddhist temple complete with prayer flags, incense burners and Buddha himself. The 'monks' handed me a couple of jelly babies as I grafted my way past and up round to the left and more woodland climbing.
In a while the runners emerged onto Branscombe beach where we ran past the wreck of the Napoli, a ship which had achieved some fame the previous year when it was wrecked there. Certain of the locals discovered that the ship contained a fortune in imported products, even some brand new BMW motorbikes. By the time we arrived all the goodies had been 'saved' from the ship and it was in the process of being broken up to remove it from the beach. The beach turned out to be memorable in other ways, most notably that once again it was necessary to run across the slope of nasty shifting shingle, hard at the best of times but evil as we tired in these later stages of the race. This shingle section seemed to go on for some while, certainly not less than a mile, before the marshal pointed the way off the stones...and up the cliff!
During the climb of the cliff I was caught up by Jason, a newly joined member of the Harriers. Jason lives for these odd off road epics and runs a diet of Long Distance Walking Assoc events, some of which are as much as 100 miles long. Given that he had taken about 14 miles to catch me, he seemed strong and on the cliff, while I increasingly looked like 'the deceased', he strode up purposefully and was quickly lost to sight. The ascent of the cliff was windy and steep, single file all the way, so we all went at the same speed up that bit. (Sorry to all behind me; you went at my speed!)
At the top of the cliff was, not suprisingly, a cliff top and some mercifully easy running for a short while. This is shortly followed by descent through the caravan site and return via Beer to Seaton. By this time I had started to really fade, so much so that I couldn't run down the slopes and was more or less walking up and down hills with a sort of jogging-like-a-statue on the flat bits.(What flat bits?) The beach had one last nasty go at us all as we ran in to the Start/Finish line. Within seconds of crossing the line, Bumble, a pretty and phenomenally tough member of the Chippenham, was telling me that she had almost caught me - it was down to just a few seconds after almost 4 hours.




to be continued

Good Samaritan or suspicious Brit?

Have you ever wished you weren't such a kindly sort? I sometimes do, wishing I hadn't got involved or getting duped by someone a bit less scrupulous than me.

Last night I was driving home from work and as I came up the slope from Chapel Plaister to Rudloe, I caught sight of a figure desperately waving, flagging me down to stop. Initially I thought there was debris in the road or something like that but as I slowed I sensed that the man wanted my help and I jumped to the conclusion that he was broken down and needed a lift. Easy, and my humane duty too, except that this encounter lead to a situation which plumbed my suspicions and prejudices and caused me to question myself and whether I live up to my own ideals.

I opened the car door and the man outside pointed to himself and said "Turkey, Istanbul!" So we had established his nationality in the first two words, (and liking Turks, I had already accepted him as friendly - why?) but what was his problem? Basically the story went that he needed money to refill his petrol tank to get to London. Whether London was home or whether he wanted to get to the airport I never found out but he claimed to be so desperate that he was willing to part with his very large gold ring, "18 carat Turkish gold!" he told me, in exchange for £20. I have little experience of rings but this was huge and under the car's interior light it did indeed feel and look like real gold but I am a suspicious old soul and have no great desire for Turkish gold. The other snag here is that it is a rare day when I actually have £20 in my pocket. It took me five minutes or more to persuade him that I really could not or would not help him and the last I saw was of him walking dejectedly back to his estate car, an elderly white Peugeot 405.

It could of course have been a scam, or he could have had a whole estate car's worth of big vicious mates hiding behind a bush, or he could have grabbed my wallet and run with it (it's not heavy so that would have been easy but hardly lucrative) but somehow it just seems such a mad place to launch such a scam and he really seemed very genuine and very desperate. So instead of helping a man in need I just feel that I slammed the door in his face.

His car wasn't there this morning.