The Hemerodromoi Marathon with Saturn Running - to celebrate Richard's 300th Marathon! Huge congratulations Richard!
A beautiful sunny and warm day (even by summer's standards, never mind for October) running down by the River Thames from Runnymead. I may be a bit sunburnt. Imagine that! There are still so many leaves on the trees, and so many are still green. But the autumn colours were looking vibrant in the sunshine. Beautiful!
Bit of an adventure to get there - a bus, a train from Waterloo to Virginia Water (picking up Sarah on the way!) and a rail replacement bus. A very posh bus it was.
We got coffee on the walk to the start, and saw the sun rise.
There is a new path at Runnymead, and the course was changed to make the most of it, so it went further west than before, and less east. I was excited to do a new bit of Thames Path, until I remembered on lap 5 that I had actually done a race on that bit before, and must also have run along it when I did the Thames Path with Andrew in 2014. But things look different in the opposite direction (is my excuse).
A great day for catching up with friends, and lots of chats on the way round. I think I managed to condense moaning about work to about 1/2 a lap (sorry, Sarah), so this left time for more interesting topics (such as Beyoncé and TikTok dances, lampshades, custard and cakes, and beginning our wish list of international marathons), which was important, as our last chat-a-thon was two weeks ago. On lap 6 we both learnt that the other one had felt secretly under prepared for today, due to variously perhaps having a bit too much rum or too much wine in the preceding night or two, and were surprised with ourselves to have made it to the end. Hurrah!
Aid station highlights today included vegan beer bottles, watermelon, the discovery of a giant bottle of pretzels hidden away, and of course, Richard's cake.
Travel adventure in reverse on the way back, with the addition of a Waitrose picnic on the bench by the bus stop by the road waiting for the rail replacement bus (also a posh bus).
Hemerodromoi means, I think, "daily runners" from Ancient Greece, who were running messengers - taking important messages from one place to the next by covering incredible distances by running.
Congratulations Richard! Thank you Team Saturn! Well done to everyone 😊
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