The Recce Weekend- the Artic one

As is now tradition, a group of us (this year, Alan, Tara, and myself) go out for a weekend in March to recce the LDWA 100 route. Although this year none of us are actually running the event itself ( The Cinque Ports 100 ) the recce is as much of a fixture for us as the proper event, and so last weekend, along with an extra participant - the Beast from the East (more on him later) - we set out.…

Well, it's not much later, but there's an opportunity here to complain about the weather, so I'm immediately going to take this up, and begin with a good long section about the Beast from the East (hereby known as the BFTE). There had been at least a week of mild weather in London leading up to the weekend. I'd vaguely noticed on the news some references that the BFTE was briefly going to return over the weekend, but the weather felt so mild that I didn't really believe it. As the weekend got closer and more people started talking about the return of the 'cold snap' I started to become more observant to the weather forecast, gradually checking it ever more frequently, working up to obsessively, spending Friday alternately glued to BBC Weather and the Met Office, switching allegiance depending upon which looked less bad. They both looked pretty terrible. But it was still so mild, I could hardly believe the BFTE would be back by the morning. It all seemed like a great deal of fuss about nothing.

I got up at 06:00 on Saturday, and peeked around the corner of the curtain. There it was! The Beast! In all it's blizzardy greatness! I spent a lot of time spent faffing around, looking at the snow, at the weather forecast, and changing outfit a few times. Too many clothes? Not enough? Waterproof, or extra warmth? I eventually decided on wearing pretty much all of my running kit at once, to cover all options, and by this time was late setting off, so ended up running the 3 miles to St Pancras so as not to miss the train.

On the train, with a nice hot cup of coffee, sat quite still (my movement hampered somewhat by the several jackets I was wearing), and looking out the window at the pretty snowy fields, it didn’t seem so bad. How pretty the snow looks! At Ashford, I met up with Alan and Tara, and the recce team was complete. At Appledore, we hopped off the train, and started wistfully at it as it headed off into the distance, abandoning us in midst of the BFTE and the middle of nowhere. That was that - nothing for it now, the recce had begun! The plan was 33 miles today (sections 6 - 10 of the route), and 38 miles tomorrow (section 11 to the end).

We ran the first mile into Appledore village and picked up the route, which went right past a perfect little tea shop, with a waft of perfect homemade cake, and perfectly happy people sat behind the perfect chequered curtains in the warm. There was the murmur of some dissension in the ranks, with certain members of the group (definitely not me) suggesting that perhaps a tea shop (and this tea shop in particular) may be more genteel way to spend the morning, rather than battling the snow which at almost the same moment we stepped off the train, had started to blow horizontally. Route Master Alan was having none of this nonsense, and off we ploughed (keep tuned for more on ploughing), head first into the blizzard….

...and the longest section of the route. My parents are doing the actual event, and so I have promised to give them a true and accurate feedback of the route, and so to make things logical I shall refer to the sections as they appear on the actual route description for the event. This was Section 6 – 10 miles from Appledore to Lydd. It was pretty monotonous – the snow coming sideways, over what seemed like field after field, after field, after field..... I genuinely had no idea there were so many fields that looked the same down here. The route description kept mentioning 'sewers’ which I initially found quite alarming, but soon happily realised this is just a quaint Kent word to describe ditches. The 10 miles passed with field, blizzard, sewer, foot bridge over sewer into next field, a few minutes of complaining about four previous points, and then repeat over and over, for a couple of hours, with a few sheep thrown in for good measure. I'm sure sheep are becoming more assertive. I remember they used to run off as they saw you coming, now they march right over at look at you with an accusing stare:

Towards the end of the section, we came across a cow trough in a field which the route description confidently stated had a tap with mains water. Hurrah! I had noticed on the train that my water bottle had leaked. Inside my bag. Fabulous. So as well as damp things, I had also been running low on water, and as always when low on water, had been feeling thirsty, and here was a solution! We turned on the tap and some thick brown liquid came out. Cow poo water. Abruptly, my thirst subsided.

I promised to talk some more about ploughing, and soon we came upon a different variation of field, a ploughed field!

Threats were made to repeats last years ‘A-Z of route description words’ but this time for fields, but we were soon saved by arriving in Lydd, the end of the first section.

An impromtu checkpoint was created, sheltered behind a hedge in a cemetery, where we tried quickly to eat some high energy snacks, which was a challenge, as they were partly frozen.

Partly re-fuelled, but now chilled from stopping, we continued on through section 7, which was a quick 5km from Lydd to New Romney, and things continued in much the same vein, but with an airport and golf course thrown in for good measure. New Romney was a delightful little town, and excitingly had some public toilets, which were exciting because 1) I needed a wee from the cold, and 2) they had a hand dryer, which blew out air which although not hot, was not as cold as the actual air.

So on to section 8, which I shall never forget as long as I live. A quick scan of the route description, and 4.5 miles from New Romney to Dymchurch seemed like it would be a breeze (an unfortunate choice of word, as it turns out). The first couple of miles were inland, mostly road running, until we arrived at the sea. The sea! The 100 route has been designed around the Cinque Ports (a historic series of coastal towns in Kent and Sussex, formed for military and trade purposes) and so I figured a lot of it would be along the coast. I love coast running, so was looking forward to this, and finally, after miles and miles of fields, we were at the sea! It wasn’t quite as I imagined. We ran up to join the promenade at the exact point that a giant dog poo bin was situated, and turned left. And then did not move any further. The BFTE was blowing a howling gale from the eastwards direction, which I suppose is logical, given it’s name. The only trouble being, the next point of the route description instructed to “continue 2.6 miles on concrete promenade to Dymchurch” in a due east direction. The sea was crashing around, the BFTE was doing its utmost to blow us backwards, the sand was covered in snow.... 

                           

...I reached my low point of the weekend, and stayed there for 2.6 miles.

After what felt like an age, we arrived in Dymchurch, where we dived into the local Tesco to procure some sustenance. A picnic followed, sheltered beneath the porch of a rather sorry looking beach shop with a couple of forlorn looking buckets and spades swaying about in the winds. Following the picnic, another toilet/ shelter inside under hand dryer stop was scheduled, before we all manned up and faced the fact we had to go back into the storm, for section 9 - 8.9 miles from Dymchurch to Hythe.

But lo! After a short section crossing the Romney Hythe and Dymchurch steam railway (with a train right on cue), the route description began harking back to talking about fields and footbridges. After stating just a few short hours ago that I never wished to run over a field again, I had never been so glad to get away from the coast and see a field in all its flat and boring glory. The fields carried on for a few miles, then two exciting things happened at once. One: a vertical bog. Two: hyenas. Yes, you read that right. Hyenas in Kent! Happily, they were behind some fairly sturdy looking fences, securely enclosed within the bounds of Port Lympne Wildlife Park. Although on a closer look, the fences didn’t look that sturdy. At over 50 miles in to the proper event, I could imagine the hyenas gradually becoming aware of the increased foot traffic passing their enclosure. Tired feet slowly slipping and sliding up the vertical bog just a few inches away from the hyenas noses… well, if ever there was an incentive to get up a hill quickly, a hungry hyena eying you up has got to be it.

Elated for making it to the top 1) without sliding back down the bog to the bottom, and 2) escaping he hyenas hungry, slobbery, and downright unpleasant stares, we were rewarded by the first real view for the day, and spent a few minutes taking it all in. It was really quite pretty up here. Beautiful in fact in the snow. A camera moment was declared:

 

From there on in the route became more interesting. We passed a castle (Lympne Castle), woods covered in a sprinkling of snow...

and then into Hythe, a charming town, where we upgraded our checkpoint facilities to a bench underneath the upper story of the Town Hall. 

Restored, we set out on out final leg for the day, 5.9 miles from Hythe to Folkstone. We were even on schedule, a statement not usually uttered on a recce weekend, and on track for a finish before sunset. This section included a (very) short bit along the Royal Military Canal...

...a hill, a house called Pickle Lodge (should have brought some cheese), woods....

...more hills, Martello Towers, and alarmingly, no less than three danger alerts “Care – flying gold balls”, “ MoD Danger” (yikes), and “Dangerous site, keep out”. We hurried through so as to avoid potential disasters, we soon arrived at Sandgate, where we returned to the seafront where the wind was still howling a gale and seemed just as determined as it had earlier to blow us backwards right back to where we started. But bouyed by the thought of a hot shower, lashings of hot tea, and a large and fulfilling meal being now just a few short miles away, the wind was no match for us, and we powered along the promenade. We passed another castle, and then wound our way through a delightful park on the cliffs, zig-zagging upwards to the top, and our stop for the night – Folkstone - just in time for nightfall!

We headed to the excellent Wycliffe Guest House, where we met up with Sarah and David who were joining us on tomorrow’s run, had very hot showers to defrost, plenty of hot tea and then headed out to equally excellent Chambers pub for food. The luxury item competition was held, which this year had no clear winner, as the weather was so bad that items usually considered a luxury (too many spare clean clothes, for example) had pretty much all been declared essential. The spare pair of shoes I had brought as my luxury item I had long ago downgraded to utterly essential, bearing in mind the state of my trainers. My other luxury item, a mini Molten Brown shower gel had disappeared, as I had spent so long in the shower trying to warm up I had used it all up (and I don't consider shower gel a luxury item anyway, but this a contentious issue in the luxury item rules).

Suitably refuelled and restored, we pulled the curtains against the howling wind, cranked the heating up, and rested up ready for the adventures of tomorrow...