Darth Vaders, Princess Leias, Star Fleet Command, a Wookie or two, some unlikely looking aliens.......and a bloke in fishnet tights.

Yes, it's that time of the year again, our annual pilgrimage to the Médoc Marathon, the biggest excuse to dress up, go running and drink wine on the French marathon calendar.

So I got dragged round the shops on Friday by my very own MAMIL to purchase some pipe insulation, dowelling, silver paint, cotton wool, an Alice band and a plastic wineglass so he could have a bit of a Blue Peter moment with his fancy dress idea.

This year's marathon theme was science fiction. We do have a fair few costumes already, being the sort of geeks who have been known to frequent sci fi conventions in the past, but none of them would be exactly comfortable for running 42kms in, and having learned his lesson from last year's idiotic plan of running in plate armour, he chose a wiser course this year and made this:

So off he trotted, amidst the host of Star Wars/Trek characters, bizarre aliens, Supermen, Pirates (?), the odd flying saucer and even a Tardis, to start the race.

We watched the whole marathon go past the start and got pics of some great/bizarre/downright weird costumes, like this:

..and this:

and. erm this:

...because every marathon I've ever been to has always had at least one Frenchman in fishnet tights running (I can't imagine how bad the chafing must be!!) usually sporting a pair of comedy breasts and grinning inanely. This year I even saw a Princess Leia with comedy breasts but sadly failed to get a decent photo. And Mike was gutted not to see any women dressed as slave girl Leia from Return of the Jedi, although there were a host of men in drag doing it :-/

I think this guy took Mike's "most uncomfortable costume to run in" prize:

I bet he was glad it wasn't as warm as last year!! And here are pics some of the more bizarre offerings on view:

 Captain America in drag?

 Some of him at least has been assimilated by the borg.....

 

 ummmm.....

Nice touch with the underpants here:

 

Not sure about these guys, Space Rats from Blake's 7, perhaps? ;-)

Leia's really let herself go these days...

Star Fleet officers like to wear drag too.....

 

During the race, we went off and had some lunch, but decided to pass on the 16€ menu:

But I did try some of the beer!

And the old boy managed to run the marathon in about 5 and a half hours which isn't bad for him. Although we missed him at the finish due to the SNO seriously living up to her nickname and annoying not only her sister but innocent bystanders so I had to take her away and find a playground to occupy her.........

Oh and whilst we were away for the weekend, guess what? Tari escaped again. How does she know....???

The 5x50 Challenge....

....started today. So basically, having signed up for this, I have to run, walk or cycle 5kms a day for 50 days. Sadly, riding doesn't count. Obviously I won't be running, I leave that to some lunatic I know......which brings me to the warm up for the challenge I had to do yesterday. Because said lunatic decided to run the Médoc Marathon. In 36 degree heat. Wearing plate armour......

...and we had to yomp round various vineyards to cheer him on. Ended up doing about 8kms which was more than enough for us! Some of the time I had to carry swords too. Gave the locals something to stare at.

More on the mad marathon man's experience here.

So after that, a little 6.5km cycle with my friend Sarah was easy this morning. Except that we decided to go off road for some of it......forgetting that the hunting season started today. After the first volley of shotgun fire which scared the crap out of me (good job I wans't on a horse)  we decided to make a LOT of noise until the men with guns had seen us. No idea what they were hunting, couldn't see any wildlife for miles around, but that could be due to the large number of flourescent hat wearing gun toting men stomping all over the countryside......

No horses, but lots of running....

Continuing the marathonning theme that seems to have taken over this year, today Mike ran the Marathon du Mont St Michel. So we drove all the way up here on Friday, scouted things out and went to the pasta party yesterday, then got up stupid early to take him to the start today. As usual with these things, they organise road closures for maximum disruption and put up helpful little "déviation" signs that abruptly run out when you are in the middle of nowhere. Not to be foiled by this, I joined the queue of bleary eyed long suffering people driving their brightly lycra clad spouse/offspring/friends to the start. And promptly lost them all as I was the only one observing the 50km/h speed limit in all the villages and they didn't seem to think this would apply at 7am on a Sunday morning.......

Caught them up in the end as the police had started directing traffic which had the usual effect of making everything slower. Dropped Mike off in a freezing cold car park, and armed with my shiny new map of the area, set off for our first rendez-vous, in a sleepy costal town. The marathon runs from Cancale all along the bay to Mont St Michel. Unlike the London experience, there wasn't a soul to be seen on the route to start with apart from some bored looking officials. I took Choccy for a walk along the beach whilst we waited and she promptly rolled in what smelled like rotting shellfish.

We went back to the route and found the few other spectators content to stand well away from us, they sure didn't want to be downwind of the dog. Watched most of the marathon go by before Mike appeared, then got the hell out of there as a Breton bagpiper had started up.......

On to the second rendez-vous. This would have been a whole lot easier if some woman hadn't decided to try and drive down a road which had been made one way for the duration of the marathon. She sat there refusing to reverse back up until an irate driver behind me got out to talk to her and it turns out she couldn't reverse her own car. So the other driver had to get his mate to do it!! Finally got to where I wanted to be in time to watch most of the marathon go past again.......

Not so hot on fancy dress at this one, although this chap was up for it

and this guy was running with his dog

Mike didn't want Choccy, can't think why.......

Then it was on to the Mont. It probably would have been quicker to walk the whole way. Sat in a traffic queue for about an hour and a half to get to the shiny new enourmous car park they've just built. Waited ages for a flagging Mike to arrive then ended up yomping about a kilometre of the course with him whilst he found some more energy from somewhere. Have to say it was a spectacular view.....

Got separated for the last km or so and Choccy and I did the fastest walk we've ever done to try to get to the finish when Mike did, but just missed him......

Fab background for the "look I made it" photo!

Then we sat on some rocks and ate the food he'd purloined from the ravataillement tent then went for a wander round the Mont and found a bar.......

Decided to get the navette back to the car park, which although shiny and new is about 4kms from the Mont itself. Got on, and Choccy and I promptly got chucked off again by some jobsworth in a suit "Les chiens ne sont pas permis, Madame.....". Guess he'd caught a whiff of her......

So Choccy and I yomped back to the car park, we drove back to the hotel, snuck her up to our room without a mamber of staff getting close enough to smell her and stuck her in the shower.....then had a shower and changed all my clothes which also smell of eau de fruits de mer pourris......

And there we were thinking a weekend without the kids along would be easier.......

Met an amazing lady.....

When I was Googling the London Marathon a while ago, I came across this site. Claire Lomas is a former 4* eventer who was paralysed in a fall a few years ago and can only walk with the aid of a robotic machine. Her story came up in my search because she is walking the London Marathon to raise money for Spinal Research.

As we were still in London on Monday after the marathon, we got in touch with Claire and asked if she'd like some company for a bit of her marathon, and she said she would. So on a wet and cold morning, we all headed back into town to find her, and  I'm glad we went. Claire is a real inspiration, she always seems to be positive and smiling. We walked from mile 2 to mile 3 of the marathon in Charlton. It was so wet and involved hills which are really tiring for her so we ended up resting under a bus shelter......

You can really see from this pic how hard it is for her to walk in the suit

She can't feel anything so even knowing when her feet are going to hit the ground is difficult.......

The SNO was very good and didn't whinge (much) and she made friends with Claire's daughter Maisie when we stopped and had lunch with everyone in a café (you can see the "robot" in the background of the pic)

We were really impressed with Claire's courage and determination and will be following her progress round the marathon course. You can sponsor her here, we have........

The London Marathon

Well, today was erm, interesting......
Yesterday we got to Excel to pick up Mike's bib etc, were pleasantly surprised to have to queue for all of five minutes compared to the nearly four hours for Paris. Some organisation at last, we thought, compared to the piss up in a brewery not being organised at all in Paris.

However, today in London we (the spectators) rapidly discovered that the great organisation began with and ended with the runners. Today the fastest way to move around London was to be in the race......

Got to Greenwich, discovered barriers everywhere manned by marshals or police so no nipping over the road wherever you fancied like in Paris. Saw Mike at about 6 miles in, no problem. Then tried to get back on the train.........

Security people everywhere, massive queues, ended up walking miles instead. Then spent an ill advised hour standing on a small ledge in front of some railings which had a good view but made my back ache a lot. Mike arrived just after I'd had enough and had got back down to street level.

Then we had to fight our way to the finish, Mike having the easy option of running there, us having to get on a train, get off at one station, be told that the station we needed was shut, walk to a third station.......wait ages to be able to use the crossing to get to the finishers area, piss ups and breweries were definitely back on!

Still, he made it, very tired but happy. And the pink hair was real, (despite some people thinking it was a Photoshop job) and it worked, he ceratinly got noticed.......!

One down....

Well here we are in Paris just having a glass of wine to recover from the Paris Marathon today, Mike had to run it obviously but the kids and I spent the whole time rushing up and down steps to Metro stations, standing in overcrowded trains and then on freezing cold and windy streets waiting for him to put in an apperance! He now has no reason to complain about hanging around at the next TREC or SJ comp we do........

Things I have to change before doing it all again in London next week: wear shoes more comfortable than jodhpur boots for yomping around a city, get Mike to dye his hair pink or something so he's easier to spot, and if humanely possible leave the SNO behind!!!

Mike is in pretty good shape, considering, having followed the advice in the official guide to the letter (think they might need to use a proper translation service next time):

 The small bandages for his tits worked well so I didn't get the complaining about jogger's nipple this time (got no sympathy from me anyway, I remember breastfeeding)

A week to recover, then off to do it all again in London. Still time to sponsor us here.

Ride and run....

My husband ran the Médoc marathon on Saturday. Like you do. It's billed as the longest marathon in the world as you run through 24 chateaux, some of which sell wine for hundreds of euros a bottle, and you can taste the wine at each and every one. And most of the French leapt at the chance to taste the wine.....and to dress up in bizarre outfits.......especially involving posing pouches, apparently!

Mike went dressed as an English marathon runner, I did offer to make him some bunny ears, but he declined.

Anyway, the day after, he wanted to do a "recovery run", so he came out with us and the horsies.

He's the flourescent yellow dot on the horizon.......