In hindsight, choosing the notorious Gatliff Marathon for my first event back in the UK, while still jet lagged wasn't my greatest idea. But it was an idea, none the less. There are two things of note about its name. Firstly, Gatliff isn't a place, it's a person; Herbert Gatliff, who in 1934 was one of the founding members of the Croydon YHA group (the Gatliff marathon is actually held in Edenbridge). 50 years later in 1984, the Gatliff marathon was held as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations, hence the name and distance. Which brings me to the second point, it isn't a marathon, it's 50 km (or the alternative 20 km or 35 km routes, which aren't marathons either). But as we shall see, that wasn't the only point in the route description which could be described as 'misleading'...
I woke at 3.30 am thanks to jet lag, so got up, repacked my bag and faffed for a while, and convinced myself that I did want to go. Really. A walk and a bus journey later I was at Waterloo at 5.45 am, and let me tell you, Waterloo at 5.45 am is quite the place to be if you haven't yet been home from the night before. Three train journeys later, I finally arrived in Edenbridge, where along with two other runners hailing from our fair capitol, we rose to our first navigational challenge of the day - finding the start.
The Gatliff is a self-navigated event, and has somewhat of a reputation for having an 'interesting' route description. The route changes each year, I suppose to prevent people from learning it, and thus taking the fun out of getting lost. I was wise to this, and in an attempt to outwit the Gatliff, had carefully plotted the grid references on some nice newly purchased maps the night before.
Turns out this was a wholey useless waste of an hour or two, as the 11 page route description focused mostly on things such as gates, 'indistinct tracts', and golf tees, which aren't marked on maps, and may or may not be marked in real life, either. I spent a good proportion of the day standing about in mud, and looking for 'indistinct and unmarked tracks', which were made all the more indistinct and tricky to find due to the fact it was autumn, and a forest full of leaves was now lying upon them. Having become separated from all of my new fellow navigational voyagers, I found myself running alone through another wood along a 'small muddy path that soon bears left to join a wider path, follow this for 500 m until you pass a house'. Having found neither a left bend nor a wider path, after several minutes I was beginning to face up to the fact that I was lost, again. But lo, I smelled woodsmoke! A house, surely! Or another runner, making a small fire, after finally having had enough of the route description? No, it was the house! A thousand hurrahs! I moved on to the next point 'go diagonally left through a parking space, and up a faint track uphill, crossing a further faint path...etc etc....' I returned to my usual state of standing in a wood, looking for a path, but seeing only leaves in all directions. Ignoring the fact the I didn't have a clue to go on, I pushed ahead up the hill, only the become ever more lost and frustrated, finally throwing my new map and myself down in the mud, scowling at the forest, and deciding that that was enough, and that I wanted to go home. A few moments passed in silence. No one appeared to rescue me. I reluctantly realised that in order to get home, I would first have to get myself out of this forest. I stood up, picked up the (now not so new looking) map, and got over myself. Some time later, I finally made it out of the forest (somewhere I hope never to return to again), and made it to the next check point.....
Still, I knew all this before I got there, and in a quirky kind of way, that's part of what makes the Gatliff I suppose. If you don't get horrendously lost, cold, and very muddy, then I'm afraid that you haven't been fully Gatliff'ed, and it's really rather fun. Getting back before dark fall is basically the common aim of everyone, whichever distance you are doing, or whatever speed you go, and it's fun trying to beat the darkness. Speaking of night fall, I was cutting it rather fine....
I left the last checkpoint at about 3.15 pm and headed out for the last 7 km in the gathering gloom. I was really hoping I wouldn't need my head torch as it was somewhere at the bottom of my bag, and I would have to get everything out and find it, and then put the batteries in it, and then put everything back in again, and quite frankly I could't be bothered with any of that right now. As I was berating myself for ending up in this situation in the first place, I was happy to run into my friend Neil and run the last few miles with him, catching up on several months running news, and running plans for the New Year. Two heads are always better then one when navigating, and we got around the last section largely without any detours, which meant we managed to get back before it got dark.
Hurrah! And now for my favourite part of any race, relaxing at the end. Back in the sports club, in the bright lights and warmth, I quickly forgot about the mud and the maps, and tucked into fish finger sandwiches and home made butternut squash soup, whist catching up with old friends, and new ones made today. I love seeing everyone back at the end! This is what I love most about running, and even despite the shock of coming back to the cold weather, it's good to be back on the UK trails and catching up with old chums. It was a great event, a mostly nice route with parts of the North Downs Way and lots of hills, a friendly crowd. A challenge, but a good one, and I'm pleased to finally have moved on and have done my first event since The NYM 100 back in May, and my 61st official marathon/ultra. Job done.
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