Up at 6am. A car journey, a flight and 2 trains later and I was in Norwich - all up just over 6 hours. Straight into the city for a pasta lunch, then I found a bed to try and get some sleep on in the afternoon whilst listening to Five Live on the radio.
Porridge around 6pm (2 bowls of), and then I got all my gear packed. I was picked from the city centre just after 10pm for the 20 minute drive out to Bungay which was the start of stage 11 of the Round Norfolk Relay.
Upon arrival you immediately got a feel for the event. The sight of runners entering the changeover point accompanied by a cyclist and the flashing light of their support vehicle. Surprisingly when we got there we watched about 12 teams coming through in quick succession. This bunching I was told was quite unusual as the teams are normally much more spread out.
I was starting to get quite nervous which was unusual for me. I think the team factor played a big part of this, plus it being pitch dark when there were no runners or cars on the road. I was asking a few questions to the support crew but this just seemed to make me more nervous so I decided it was best to stay quiet and try and stay calm.
Another lift from a support vehicle from stage 11 to stage 12 which was the start of the stage that I was to run. I was expecting to start some time after 1:30am so there was a fair bit of waiting around which I did in the warmth of the car. Tension levels were continuing to rise. Then shortly after 1:30am I got the call that our runner was about a mile a way so I stripped off and made my way down to the changeover zone waiting for the baton to appear...
1 comment:
I was just gettting into that..
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