Dorchester Marathon, Tracy Symes, 28 May 2017

So only 4 weeks after running Milton Keynes marathon I find myself on the start line of another one!  I only signed up to help Jenny complete her first marathon, although as it turned out she didn’t really need my help.

With a ridiculous early start we left Crewkerne at 6.45am far to early for me.  The start is at 8.30 which turned out to be a good thing as it was a very warm day, we line up for the start and head out of the farmers field and left out to the bottom of town, we reach our first hill just at the 1 mile marker I am not amused.

We decide not to push it on the hills and decide to have a stroll until we reach the top of the hill, we carry on running through town until we head out into the countryside, I have no real idea where we are heading but as its Dorset I expect the course to be hilly although I don’t think I was prepared for how hilly!!

We continue running/walking the hills and at mile 7 we both wonder what we are doing as it gets particularly hot and humid along a country lane with no shade, I’m really not liking the heat.

The marshals are all a great support as are the locals who are dotted around the route and the drink/feed stations are well stocked with sweets and nibbles.  The route isn’t getting any flatter but the village we are running through are very pretty, as we run through one village I really want to swap places with the spectator enjoying a nice cool glass of pimms.

It was lovely to have a group of CRC supporters at the 20 mile marker, I notice they found a pub to stand outside, we continue round the corner to the lovestation, now White Star running events are famous for their lovestations although I’ve never experienced one before.  Its in a farm yard and has plenty of food and drinks and some willing volunteers to give you a nice cool hug with some wet sponges I must say it was very nice.  I hear Tim and Rebecca indulged in the vodka shots, as tempting as it was I ran past them.

At least there are only 6 miles to go how many more hills can there be, well as I was to find out a bloody lot more.  Whilst I’m hating every minute of this run Jenny on the other hand is still bouncing check out the official photos on White Star Running facebook page and you’ll see what I mean.

We finally reach the last bloody hill and I can see the 26 mile marker at this point I look at my watch then look and Jenny and tell her if she wants to finish under 6 hours we’d better get a move on so I start to speed up, well it was downhill.  We took the final bend and I did have to offer some words of encouragement to Jenny to get her to sprint to the finish line.  I got the impression she didn’t really enjoy the last few metres as much as she’d enjoyed the rest of the race but we got over the finish line in under 6 hours job done.

A very well organised event but I won’t be going back next year to do it again far too many hills for my liking.

Thank you to all the guys who came over and supported us and well done to all the CRC runners especially Jenny and Kirsten both completing their first marathon.

Here’s few photos captured by my long suffering husband!

Photos here

Results for the Marathon